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FLYING VISITS 



FLYING VISITS 



HARRY FURNISS 



WITH ILL USTRA TIONS B Y THE A UTHOR 



NEW YORK 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 

5 and 7 East Sixteenth Street 

Chicago: 266 & 268 Wabash Ave. 






Copyright, 1892, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 



[A IZ rights reserved] 

turns. 



INTRODUCTION. 



As these articles have appeared in Black and 
White, it is needless for me to say that my 
impressions are in no way colored ; and 
although I travelled 7,000 miles in sixteen 
weeks to give my entertainment " The 
Humors of Parliament" all over the United 
Kingdom, and am therefore qualified perhaps 
to compile an elaborate work, such as 
An Encyclopedic Gttidebook to the British 
Isles, yet I did not seek for material, but 
just dotted down impressions in my flight, 
and as such I present them to my reader, 
with the addition of extracts from letters to a 
friend at home, to whom this book is hereby 
dedicated. 

HARRY FURNISS. 

London, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction, 



Show Week in Dublin, 5 

Across the Channel— " Davy"— His repartee to Dr. 
Tanner— From Kingstown to Dublin— The Horse 
Show— Biassed Critics— How Jupiter Jumped— And 
how Programmes Jump. 

"After the Horse Show's Over," . . . .21 
Irish Celebrities— Dublin in Darkness— " Liberty ! "— 
Typical incongruities— The permanent Lord Mayor 
of Dublin— The fiery, untamed athlete— Football ex- 
traordinary—Curious cricket— Enthusiastic Parnell- 
ites — Between Scylla and Charybdis. 

Round Belfast at High Pressure, .... 39 
Jottings en route— The Legs of the Law— "When Con- 
stabulary's duty's to be done "— Mr." MacMoneygle" 
—Off!— An Electrical Rush— Round the Town— A 
Mammoth Workshop— Nearly Cremated — We are 
frozen, baked, galvanized, hammered, planed, tarred, 
and varnished— " Fleshers "— ' 'Far from the Mad- 
ding Crowd "—The Spirit of Belfast. 

From Ledgers to Leeks, 5 6 

Counterfeit Celebrities— The Decay of Summer— "All 
that was left of them"— Miss Taffy's Teeth— Llan- 
dudno— Masculine Young Ladies. 



Viil CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Southport-on-Sand, 72 

The Sahara of Lancashire — An Artificial Seaside — 
The Fair on the Sands — The Wreck of the ' ' William 
Fisher " — A Gigantic Centipede — Dry Land Sailing 
— A Family Photo — The New Theatre. 

The Brighton of the North, 87 

The Spa and its Manager — A Contrast — The Jockey 
Postilions — A Sketch after Leech — Familiar Figures 
on the Spa — The Wielder of the Baton — A Band of 
Undertakers — The Visitors' Daily Programme. 

Sanctity and Hams, 98 

York — An Artistic Joke— J. L. Toole and the Native — 
Up the River — A Clerical City — A Church-like Thea- 
tre — York as a Commercial Centre. 

Sheffield in Black and White, . . . .112 
A Picture of Sheffield, Black— Another, White—" Aa 
know that man, he cums fra' Sheffield " — Endcliff 
Wood — Puzzle, find the Queen. 

The Home of "Ye Pantiles," 120 

The Discoverer of the Waters — The Elixir of Life — 
Tunbridge Wells as it was — Movable Dwellings — A 
Scene of Devastation — Ye Pantiles of the Past — The 
Ancient Dispenser of Chalybeate — "Feyther's look- 
in' ! " — A Second Edition of " The Jumping Frog." 

The Show Garden of England, . . . .138 
A Big Exhibition ; Side Shows extra — " Tolls, please ! " 
— Playing at Trains — Coach Touts — The Side 
Shows — Pretty Totland Bay — A Dangerous Foun- 
dation — The Flowers in the Garden. 



CONTENTS. ix 

PAGE 

Eastbourne after the Season, . . . .153 
Good-by to the Holiday Makers — Splash Point — How 
the Visitor Spends the Day — His Friend, the Waiter 
— The Daily Papers — The Pavilion — The Manager's 
Enterprise — Ladies on the Links — The Curse of East- 
bourne — A Fugitive. 

Pines and Parsons, 166 

Why not Bradlaughmouth ? — Retired Warriors — The 
Bedroom Brigade — A more apropos Statue — 
Church, Sermons, and Curates — The Sanctity of the 
Winter Garden Destroyed — A Sumptuous Hotel — 
The Valley of the Bourne — An Awe-inspiring Foun- 
tain — The Invalids' Walk — Sir William. 

Notes by the Way, and a Look in at Ripon, . 186 
The Last Coach of the Season— The Old Style and the 
New — The Black Country — A Modern Hades — Peace- 
ful Ripon — I Explore the Wrong Hotel — The Wail 
of the Nine o'Clock Horn — The Facetious Producer 
thereof—" Old Boots"—'' Made in Germany "—Ger- 
man v. English Waiters — The Mayor's Procession — 
" We don't like London." 

Mems. on the Mersey, 199 

A Cosmopolitan Spot — Landing Stage Dramas— Playing 
His First Part — A Busy Watery Highway — The Fer- 
ries — Business and Pleasure — Mr. Simpson — A Polar 
Picture — A Suggestion to Dramatists. 

"The Granite City," 215 

My First and Last Haggis — The Granite — Noises by 
Day and Night — The Tintinnabulation of the Bells 
— Festivities in connection therewith — My Banquet 
— My Host— The Scotch Humorist— " Auld Lang 



x CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Syne," and the Effects it Produces— "Linked Arms, 
Long Drawn Out." 

My First Glimpse of "Modern Athens," . . 229 
A Beautiful City — Statuary "de trop" — Sir Walter 
Scott's Monument— Prince Albert's Statue — The 
Castle — Billings' Barracks — The One o'Clock Gun 
and its Effect — Dinnertime for Thomas McAtkins— 
Young Edinburgh— I View the City under Unfavora- 
ble Conditions. 

The Queen of the South, 244 

Three to One — Burns Mania — Window-pane Verses — 
Burns Going to the Dogs — The Two Markets — A 
Scotch Russian— An Ex-M.P.— Only a Face at the 
Window— Old Mortality and His Pony— The Obser- 
vatory Garden. 

The Town of the " Twa Brigs," . . . .257 
More of the Burns Epidemic— Relics of Tarn O'Shan- 
ter and Souter Johnny— The Burns Country — " The 
Auld Brig o' Doon "— The Esplanade— An " Ayr- 
gun "—The Legend of the "Twa Brigs "—No Ro- 
mance Nowadays. 

Cottonopolis, 271 

Old Mancunium — Smoke and Shekels — Musical Man- 
chester — Oh ! those Lorries ! — A Typical Picture of 
the City — More Statues — One that was left of them. 

Travelling in Scotland, 282 

A Stranger in a Strange Land — Over the Border — My 
First Glimpse of the "Land o' Cakes" — And my 
First of Switzerland — Draughty Carriages — Gretna 
Green — Elopements up to Date — " Caledonia, Stern 
and Wild "—Giants' Golf Links—" Caller Herrin' ! " 






Holyliead. 



My dear M., 

We are off at last on tour with " The Hu- 
mors of Parliament." Leaving Euston by the Irish 
Mail, I was rather disappointed to find that Mr. 
Gladstone, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Richard Tem- 
ple, and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain had only sent repre- 
sentatives to see me off, as I had a neat little speech 
ready tvith which to address them, a la Gladstone, 
from the carriage window. . . . It rather amused 
me to read in the papers that " Harry Furniss has 
packed his portmanteau and is off on tour." Port- 
manteau indeed ! You might as well say that Irv- 
ing was taking his costume basket with him, Miss 
Terry her handbag, or George Grossmith a musical 
box. I believe that Mr. Irving takes a tram with 
sixteen carriages, and of course George Grossmith' s 



2 FLYING VISITS. 

piano is a necessity. I only wish that I could have 
got the fifth part of my luggage into the space of an 
ordinary luggage van. fust look ! You can judge 
for yourself. The boxes on the left contain my elabo- 
rate paraphernalia, a complete fit-up and a triple re- 
flex combination self-acting double-riveted 400 horse- 




power lantern, a patent collapsing up-to-data air-tight 
and rain-proof studio, and a new elastic-sided electro- 
plated writing-case, jewelled in four places ; indeed, 
so elaborate were my belongings that the station-mas- 
ter, who was of an inquisitive turn of mind, and 
who happened to know that I was going on tour with 
my show, thought that I had got most of the Mem- 



FLYING VISITS. 



bers hid away among my baggage, and that I was go- 
ing to exhibit them after the fashion of a menagerie, 
. . . Mac, my secretary, travels with me, and I 

am accompanied as well by Professor C , facile 

princeps in the art of manipulating the lantern ; and 
apart from this he is a veritable Mark Tapley. 
From his aspect you might take him for a High 
Church parson, but there is a quiet gleam in his eye 
which betokens the innate sense of humor he possesses. 
He has travelled a good deal, — been all through 
A merica, and has " done " our 
own provinces time after time, 
and many are the tales he has 
to tell of his adventures ; but we 
thought it somewhat curious that 
in telling us when any particu- 
lar incident occurred^ he used as sl 
his landmarks of time, not dates, 
but accidents or murders which 
had occurred in or about the 
town he was speaking of at the 
time. . . . I must confess that I am a little ner- 
vous about this my debut in the provinces as an inde- 
pendent entertainer. As you know, I have lectured a 
good deal in the country ; but then a lecturer's audi- 
ence is always assured beforehand, as he is engaged by 




4 FLYING VISITS. 

some Society or Institute : but now that I have given 
up trying to make people wise, and endeavor instead 
to make them merry — in other words, now that I have 
abandoned lecturing in favor of entertaining, — it is a 
different matter, as I appeal direct to the public ; and 
I am told that a London success, however great, counts 
for very little in the country, . . . Best wishes. 

Yours, etc., 




SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 



Across the Channel— " Davy"— His repartee to Dr. Tanner — 
From Kingstown to Dublin — The Horse Show — Biassed 
Critics — How Jupiter Jumped — And how Programmes 
Jump. 




EAR dirty Dublin" was 
never so dear or never 
so dirty as when I visited 
it during the Horse Show, or rather Horse 
Fair, week. Standing- on the deck of the Royal 
Mail steamer Ulster, listening to the paddles 
churning up the waves with their ponderous 



FLYING VISITS. 



blades, their regular beat seems to be repeat « 
ing to you with a monotonous, rhythmical 
swing: " Cead mille failthe ! Cead mille 
failthe ! Cead mille failthe ! " and you picture 
to yourself the 
artistic figure 
of Erin looking 
over lovely Dub- 
lin Bay, waiting 
to welcome 
you. In reality, 
the eye that 
awaits .you is 
one of keen busi- 
ness ; and the 
first specimen of 
this is the hu- 
morous twinkle, 
albeit with mer- 
cenary intent, 
of an extraor- 
dinary individ- 
ual with long, 
matted hair, 

and overcoat of gigantic dimensions held 
"iligantly" up on one side, encircling numer- 
ous bundles of the literature of the country. 




SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 7 

This is " Davy." The first thing he hands you 
as you step off the steamer at Kingstown is a 
little advertisement of himself in book form, 
in which I read the following stanza : — 

Davy hath a beaming eye ; 

On all his customers it beameth ; 
Everyone who passes by 

Thinks that for himself it gleameth ; 
But there's an eye that's brighter far, 

And shines behind this jovial quizness, 
Leading like a guiding star, 

And that is Davy's eye for business. 

It is certainly a most roguish eye, and I was 
rather astonished when he came up and ad- 
dressed me by name. 

" Shure and Oi knew yez at wants from yer 
porthraits in the paypurs, and Oi'm glad to 
wilcome yez to ould Oireland. Maybe we 
may meet in London some day, whin Oi dhress 
in the hoight of fashion, wid me frackcoat, and 
toi, and cane. Oi always go over for the 
Darby, and have a pape at the House of 
Commons. Now ye'll be after drawin' me 
porthrait, won't yez, Misther Furrniss ? Ye'll 
not forget Davy ? " 

There is no doubt that Davy has a con- 
siderable fund of native Irish wit, which I have 
noticed is fast disappearing from his country- 



8 FLYING VISITS. 

men, crushed out by the latter-day rancorous 
party feeling and political wrangling. Perhaps 
the best repartee of Davy's is one related by 
himself, concerning Dr. Tanner. 

"How's yourself, Doctor?" said Davy one 
evening, as the M.P. stepped ashore. 

"Very well; and how are you, Davy? I 
see you haven't had your hair cut lately ? " 

"No," said Davy; "but Mr. Balfour will 
soon cut yours for you ! " 

If first impressions are everything, I wonder 
what impression a Saxon would get of Ireland 
by being received by this uncouth and un- 
kempt individual ! 

It is particularly interesting to me to re- 
visit Dublin, and I may be pardoned if I am 
personal for a moment, and settle a question 
once for all of national importance ; viz., 
whether the writer of these lines is an Irish- 
man or not. My father was English, my 
mother is Scotch, and I was born in Ireland; 
and lived in the country until late in my teens, 
when I went to England. 

As a schoolboy in Dublin, of a volatile 
nature, and with a Robinson Crusonian dis- 
position for exploring, I knew Dublin and its 
surroundings very well ; and I must say that 



SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 



after nearly twenty years' absence I found the 
"ould country" much as I left it, and this 
was made evident to me on our journey from 
Kingstown to Dublin, where I seemed to 
recognize the same old bottles on the beach 
that I pelted with stones in the days of my 
youth, the same old cockle-women I used to 
patronize, and the same old human relics of 
the past that used to patronize me. Indeed, 
John Leech's sketch of Westland Row Sta- 
tion, where jarveys called the Saxon tourist 
" Captain," " Major," or " Gineral," accord- 
ing to the amount of luggage he possessed, 
would be a fair illustration of the station of 
to-day. 




io Plying visits. 

I was disappointed on the journey up to 
miss a well-known porter who was for many 
years stationed at Blackrock. He was after- 
ward moved to Salt Hill, but was in the 
habit of going along the train, calling out, 
" Blackrock - Salt - Hill - oi - mane ! Blackrock - 
Salt-Hill-oi-mane !" I wonder was he there 
in Leech's day ? But there was no mistaking 
the " Here y' are, Captain ; this is the kyar 
for yez ! " " Git along wid yez, shure the 
Major's coming to me ! " " What are ye 
blatherin' about, isn't it the Gineral himself 
that's after knowin' Patsey O'Hooligan has 
the natest little kyar in Dublin ? " and so on, 
until we and our luggage are rescued by an 
energetic porter. 

It is a curious fact that in Ireland they 
have a propensity supposed to be peculiar 
to the American race ; viz., "booming." We 
met an Irish "boomer" coming up in the 
train. 

" Shure ye'd be afther coming over to the 
Harse Show, of coorse, and it's the foinest 
show in the wur-rld intoirely. We've three 
things in this counthry that can't be bate in 
the woide, woide wur-rld — the foinest harse 
show, the foinest brewery, and, in the North, 



SHOIV WEEK IN DUBLIN. II 

we're turnin' out the foinest ships, altho 7 I 
don't moind tellin' yez the shipbuilders ain't 
Oirish at all, at all, and the Harse Show is 
moore loike an English fair." 

And, indeed, we're told from morning to 
night that everything in the " ould counthry " 
is the " foinest intoirely." 

Certainly the policemen are the " foinest," 
but the English traveller must smile when he 
is told there are not finer drivers than the 
Irish jarveys — oh, shade of Selby ! — that the 
Dublin shops are not to be " bate anywhere " 
— poor Shoolbred and Maple ! — that Irish- 
women are the " purtiest " in the world — what 
does Jersey say ? But this is digression ; I 
must leave general matters to my next chap- 
ter, and in this confine myself to the Horse 
Show — the great annual carnival of Dublin. 

In days gone by the Horse Show was held 
in Kildare Street, and was a quiet, modest 
annual function ; now it has grown to be the 
" foinest" and most famous Horse Show in 
the world, and is held at Balls Bridge, on the 
banks of the river Dodder, a stream flowing 
— no, not exactly flowing, but struggling — 
through stones, old worn-out kettles, bottom- 
less saucepans, and other cast-off domestic 



12 FLYING VISITS. 

utensils, to say nothing of defunct domestic 
pets. I can well recall this secluded spot in 
days gone by, when it was frequented only by 
fishers of kettles and other articles concealed 
among this extensive heterogeneous collection, 
but now all the world and his wife patronize 
this district in the famous week, and multi- 
tudes of bipeds and quadrupeds mingling 
together fill the vast enclosures at Balls 
Bridge. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur 
in Mis ! But I will leave these reminiscences 
to the descriptive writer and moralist, and mix 
with the crowd, sketch-book in hand. 

It is strange that, even at a Horse Show, 
one cannot get away from politics in Ireland, 
as the following conversation, which took 
place at the show this year, will demonstrate. 
There was a horse in the jumping competition 
named Balfour, and two ardent Nationalists 
were looking on as the horse cantered up to 
take the big stone-wall jump. 

"Arrah, Moike, this horse is called Balfour, 
bedad ! " 

" Shure, he'll be no good ; there's divil a 
bit of jumping power in him at all, at all ! " 

Balfour went for the difficulty, and dis- 
placed a few small stones on top. 



SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 



13 



" And wasn't Oi afther tellin' yez so ? 
he wint at it loike his own battherine 



ram. 



It so happened that very few horses in the 
competition succeeded in doing so well as 




Balfour, and the horse was trotted out with 
two or three others to try conclusions a sec- 
ond time, much to the disgust of my two 
neighboring onlookers. 

" Och, shure they'd throt him out agin ef 
he wasn't to lave a shtone shtandin'. Just 
watch him now, Moike." 



14 



FLYING VISITS. 



The horse tucked up his legs and cleared 
the wall splendidly. 

"Look at that now, why he's too ' cliver 
fur us intoirely ! ' " 

And yet they say, when I, in my 
Humors of Parliament, introduce a question 
about a scarecrow, which an Irish member 




suggests was mistaken purposely by the 
police for a native, of the Emerald Isle, 
and shot accordingly, I am grossly exaggera- 
ting. 

The first horse to jump on the second day 
was one entitled Jupiter, and belonged to a 
friend of mine. Whether he was purposely 
considerate of his fellow gee-gees, I don't 



SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 



15 



know ; but he went for that wall with an evi- 
dent intention not to jump it, but to knock it 




down, which he in a great measure succeeded 
in doing, and it was interesting to note that 
this soft place where Jupiter jumped was 



\6 



FLYING VISITS. 



selected for all the other horses 
to try their prowess at. 

Every horse's performance 
was loudly greeted by an en- 
thusiastic and fashionable crowd, 
who were promenading round 
the enclosure ankle - deep in 
mud. Some had taken up their 
positions on a seat by the wall, 
veritable wall- 
as 




flowers, 
shown by my 
sketch. The 
horsey, the 
clerical, the so- 
ciety, the juve- 
nile, and the 
commercial element were all 
represented, and in this case 
placed on an equal footing 
for once. 

The Master of the Cere- 
monies, Lord Rathdonnell, 
was conspicuous by his 
energy in waving two flags, 
red and white, in the middle 
of the arena. In strong con- 



SHOW WEEK IN DUBLIN. 



17 



trast was another Lord R , the inheritor of 

a famous telescope, who looked anything but a 
sportsman ; and the familiar figure of a retired 
military officer was very much en evidence in 

the ring. Some of the 
other ring - masters 
I shall give in my 
next chapter. I am 
disturbed in sketch- 
ing them by a boy 





calling out, lt Jumping pro- 
grammes ! Jumping pro- 
grammes ! " I asked him how a programme 
jumps. That boy is still considering his reply, 
and yet they say the Irish are sharp at repartee! 




Dublin. 



My dear M., 

Oh, these Irish hotels ! It is no wonder the 
English traveller keeps azuay from this country, pre- 
ferring to spend his money elsewhere, zvJiere he ca?i be 
sure of cleanliness and something lie can eat. You 

knozu Mr. A , the ardent Gladstonian, zvho came 

over here with his zvife and family, instead of going 
on the Continent ? No doubt it was the best thing he 
could do to show his interest in the country. He went 
to the principal hotel and sat down to dinner the night 
they arrived; but the soup was untouchable, the fish 
might have been fresh a month or so before he arrived, 
and the game — well, it zvas about as high as the hotel 
bill, and that's saying something. So, being wise in 
his generation, he simply took the first boat back to 

England. I believe Mr. A is a Unionist now. 

. . . The city is crammed, so we are at the mercy 



FLYING VISITS. 19 

of the hotel vampire, who is busily sucking the gold 
out of the unfortunate visitors' pockets. It is ivell we 
booked r oo jus beforehand. I had a gorgeous bedroom 




allotted to me, but notwithstanding my surroundings, 
the first night I turned in the arms of Morpheus posi- 
tively declined to enfold me. This I put down to the 
change of climate ; but on the second night I felt as 
if I 'were in a Turkish bath, and the night after I 
imagined I was being baked in an extra hot oven. 
My temperature zvas at fever-heat ; but in answer to 
all my inquiries they assured me that the kitchen 
fires were on the other side of the hotel. However, a 
friend of mine, also a visitor, who happened to be on 
the Health Committee, and who knew something about 
practical sanitation, was horrified to find me in such 
a vapor bath, and quickly rescued me, just as I was 
on the point of being cooked alive. It was then ac- 



20 FLYING VISITS. 

knowledged that my bedroom was right over the hotel 
fires. Upon this I was relegated to another room, 
where sleep was equally impossible, owing to the noise 
of the stone pavements, the tramways, and the rat- 
tling of the draughty windows. After that I was 
removed to some box under the stairs (I will not dig- 
nify it by the name of bedroom), and eventually, out 
of compassion for me, my friend vacated Ids room — 
the only habitable one in the place, I believe — in my 
favor. . . . As you can guess, I have not very 
much time for festive gatherings, but I was fortunate 
enough to renew acquaintance with a charming lady 
whom I had met during the London season, who has 
been very kind to us here, and with whom we spent a 
most enjoyable evening at her quaint and picturesque 
country house, at Dalkey. On Sunday I had the 
pleasure of dining with an old acquaintance, in the 

person of Dr. H , at whose hospitable house L met 

the genial editor of the " Lrish Times''' and other de- 
lightful representative people. 

Yours, etc., 




"AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S 
OVER." 



Irish Celebrities — Dublin in Darkness— " Liberty ! " — Typical 
incongruities — The permanent Lord Mayor of Dublin— 
The fiery, untamed athlete — Football extraordinary- 
Curious cricket — Enthusiastic Parnellites — Between 
Scylla and Charybdis. 

Horse Show week over, Dublin 
quickly emptied. 
The Presi- 
dent of the 
Show, Sir 
Thomas But- 
ler, whom I 
sketch here, 
umbrella in 
hand, is to be congratulated on the success 
of the Show this year. I find that on the 
same page of my notebook is a slight sketch 
of the two leading; Hants of Ireland. One 
looks like a well-to-do farmer, always jolly and 
rubicund; the other seems to bear a strong 
resemblance to the " sporting gent " in a 
modern drama. They are hurried notes, and 




22 



FLYING VISITS. 



I publish them just 
as they were made 
on the spot. 

It would be well 
for Dublin if its brill- 
iancy were not con- 
fined to one week in 
the year, and the 
other fifty-one left in 
darkness ; for after 
dusk the streets of 





the city are disgrace- 
fully lighted, and what 
Dublin wants is a 
scavenger, an elec- 
trical engineer, and a 
wood pavior. You can't 
see the names of the 
streets, and to read an 



AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER. 



23 



address you have to go in search of a lamp- 
post, and climb halfway up to get any light 
from the scanty illuminations of the city, and 
you run the risk in doing so of tumbling down 
upon the good-natured priest who is standing 




underneath, endeavoring to decipher the 
columns of the National Press by the light of 
the " gas-lamp dimly burning." 

The Irish are always crying out for Liberty, 
but the Hibernian who said, " We don't know 
exactly what we want, but we mean to have 
it," might well be informed the Liberty they 
most require is the well-known firm of that 



24 



FLYING VISITS. 



name hailing from Recent Street. It is strange 
that the native city of that great advocate of 
aestheticism, Oscar Wilde, should turn a deaf 
ear to the teachings of 
the Postlethwaitian school. 
The Irish, to judge from 
their houses, are quite 
devoid of all artistic 
taste, and it makes one 
shudder to see the vile 
decorations and furniture 
of the worst period of 
taste in the Victorian era 
still untouched in Ireland. 
In England the £$o sub- 
urban villa of the hard- 
worked City clerk would 
put to shame the arrange- 
ments in the houses of 
the elite of Ireland ; in 
fact the chief character- 
istic of the Irish I may 
venture to say is a want 
of thoroughness. They are never thorough in 
anything they do, individually or collectively, 
and this is why they must always play second 
fiddle to the sister isle in the British orchestra. 




"AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER." 2$ 

For example, you go into one of the 
principal restaurants in Dublin : everything 
possible is done to pander to the taste of the 
lover of display and splendor. The pillars 
are enveloped in plush and lavishly gilt, 
flowering plants of various descriptions are 
placed on every window-ledge, huge tropical 
ferns, standing in beautifully-finished tubs of 
polished wood, resplendent with fittings of 
brightly burnished brass, form a perfect 
canopy above with their wide - spreading 
leaves. Everything, in fact, is on a scale 
magnificent enough to vie with any other 
establishment of the kind elsewhere ; but the 
plush round the pillars shows a gaping seam 
from top to bottom, the plants in the windows 
are placed in old biscuit boxes wrapped round 
with paper, while the gorgeous tubs containing 
the ferns are placed upon empty rough deal 
wine cases. 

In the Mansion House the best of banquets 
is provided by the best of Lord Mayors : 
everything is carried out to the minutest 
details, and the Saxon guest might almost 
imagine he was in the Guildhall ; but the 
gorgeous flunkeys, with all their brilliant 
finery, have not taken the trouble to button 



26 



FLYING VISITS. 



the knees of their plush breeches, and their 
stockings hang* in wrinkles over their ankles, 
in contrast to Mr. White, their chief, who is 
known as the permanent Lord Mayor of 

Dublin. The ban- 
quet is gastro- 
nomically perfect, 
but you find a loaf 
of Irish bread is 
put by the side of 
your plate instead 
of the neat and 
more appetizing 
French roll. A 
well-built carriage, 
turned out in style, 
and horsed to per- 
fection, will be 
awaiting you, but 
the coachman will 
have a hat green 
with age, and his 
boots will be more 
suited for the 
stable-yard. If by some odd chance the Jehu 
is in keeping with the equipage, probably the 
handle of the carriage- door has at some time 




AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER: 



2^ 



or other been broken off, and is now tied up 
with a bit of string. But perhaps the artistic 
eye should not be too severe in its criticisms 
of a nation whose country, above all others, 
stands as the typical land of hospitality. 

Quite recently Dublin has been receiving 
the Institute of Journalists and the Chamber 
of Commerce ; but should they ever invite the 
Sunday Obser- 
vance Society to 
Ireland, I wonder 
what they (the 
S.O.S.) would 
say if they 
chanced to stroll 
through Phcenix 
Park on a Sun- 
day morning, the 
time usually 
selected by the 
fiery, untamed 
athlete of " Ould 
O ire land" to 
work off his su- 
perfluous energy. 
On entering the gates you are not solicited 
by poke-bonneted lasses to invest in the 




28 



FLYING VISITS. 



War Cry or a varied selection of tracts, 
but extraordinary wooden instruments, which 
I thought were boomerangs on an enlarged 
scale, are offered on the hire system. And if 
you go a little further the whole Park seems 










alive with holiday makers, more or less clad, 
and the air is rent with wild, ear-piercing yells 
peculiar to the sons of Erin ; in strong con- 
trast to the comparative quiet of Hyde Park 
or Hampstead Heath on a Sabbath morning, 
Phoenix Park is a perfect Pandemonium. 

The aforesaid truculent-looking clubs turn 
out to be Irish hockey sticks, wielded by men 



"AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER. 1 ' 29 

and boys clad for the most part in tatter- 
demalion attire. Whack ! whack ! whack ! 
they drive the ball all over the field, these 
immense clubs whizzino- round their heads 
like the national shillelah, and it is an ex- 
traordinary thing that among all this banging 
and club swinging the majority of the partici- 
pants preferred to play in bare feet. As my 
hat was in jeopardy, I moved on, and came 
across a crowd of footballers, or, more properly 
speaking, several crowds, for there seemed to 
be teams spread all over the magnificent 
Dublin football ground, and each side con- 
sisted of close on a hundred members. My 
travelling companion, who is a football enthu- 
siast himself, nearly fainted at the incongruous 
mixture of attire of the different players 
engaged in this desperate melee, and spent a 
long time looking on in the vain endeavor to 
fathom the mystic rules which governed this 
truly extraordinary game. Cricket at another 
point was carried on in the same original way. 
The batting-side gamble at cards by the side 
of the scorers till their turn comes to go in, 
and then the fielders have to wait while 
" Tirence " plays his hand out before he takes 
up his bat. The more juvenile athletes I 



30 



FLYING VISITS. 



show in my sketch were also of the fiery un- 
tamed persuasion, and their costume and 
antics defy description. 

The following Sunday I avoided the Park, 




not because I was uninterested in the Sunday 
recreations of this human " ollapodrida, ,, but 
because I heard that there was a political 
meeting in the Park, and I had had more 
than enough of such gatherings, so I remained 
in my hotel. Just when I was dressing for 
dinner, the more or less musical strains of 
approaching bands smote upon my ear, and 
soon music, shouting, and cheering seemed to 
surround the hotel. I went down, and there 
saw, standing in a brake and haranguing a 



11 AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER. 



31 



surging mass of people, the familiar figure of 
Charles Stewart Parnell. He descended from 
the wagon at the close of his oration, and 
literally fought his way into the hotel, while 
his admirers, who had invaded the hall, clung 
to his coat-tails till they were summarily 
ejected by the hotel servants, I am thankful 




to say this is all I saw of political life in 
Ireland. 

My travelling companion had a peculiar 
little experience in Dublin, which gives an in- 
sight into the absurd state of political feeling 



32 FLYING VISITS. 

in that city. While walking with two Dublin 
acquaintances over the bridge leading into the 
principal street, he made some casual remark 
about Sackville Street not having altered much 
of late years, whereupon the friend on his right 
turned upon him with : 

" Shure, if it's Sackville Sthrate ye're after 
callin' it, it's dropping yer into the Liffey Oi'll 
be ! It's O'Conneti Sthrate ! " 

Well, as differences of opinion with an ex- 
cited son of Erin are apt to be detrimental to 
the symmetry of one's features, and as the 
name was a matter of total indifference to my 
companion, he acquiesced, saying : 

" All right, O'Connell Street it is then ! " 

When the friend on his left jumped round, 
shillelah on high, and roared : 

" Call it O'Connell Sthrate in moi prisince, 
bedad, and Oi'll hold yer head under the furst 
thram-car that comes along ! " 

My perplexed companion, in this awkward 
dilemma, might not inaptly be termed an Eng- 
lish rose between two Irish blackthorns ! 




Dublin. 



My dear M., 

Thanks for the press cuttings you sent me^ 
containing the screeching criticisms of the Irish press 
upon my articles in " Black and White" Of course I 
shall take no notice of them : I have only pity for their 
utter want of common sense. It is a very curious fact 
that the French and the Irish, who are par excellence 
the jesters of Europe, frequently making themselves 
the butt of their own jokes, cannot stand the slightest 
chaff or fair criticism. I suppose it is their having 
this trait in common that makes Pat and Alphonse 
such friends. As long as you flatter an Irishman, so 
long will he bless you ; but be frank with him, and he 
curses you. I think this zvas very neatly summed up 



FLYING VISITS. 35 

by a drawing of Charles Keenes which appeared in 
" Punch" of an old Irishwoman soliciting alms from 
a local doctor. 

" Wont ye give me a copper ; docther dear ? TJiry, 
now, if ye haven t wan penny convanient ! and may 
the blissid saints incrase ye ! " 

" Stand aside, my good woman. I've nothing for 
you." 

" Oh, thin, the Lard presarve yer eyesight, for the 
divil a nose ye have to mount the ' specs ' upon ! " 

But it is a good thing that this only applies to the 
majority of the Irish in their own country. No one 
laughs more at the idiosyncrasies of his stop-at-home 
countryman than does the Irishman you meet in Eng- 
land and elsewhere ; and I am proud to say that I 
number among my friends a great many Irish people 
indeed. Some of them I have met here have laughed 
heartily over the criticisms you sent me. . . . It 
is rather flattering to find the long and highly eulo- 
gistic criticisms of my performance follozued by big 
houses, and certainly no actor has been more honored 
both by audiences and press notices ; but then mem- 
bers of the profession shozv their cleverness in giving 
effect to the lines of others, and their duties are re- 
stricted to the boards. Should an actor be his own 
author, manager, and scene-painter, and at the same 



3& FLYING VISITS. 

time fill up his spare moments by practising in another 
profession, journalism to wit, and should he chance to 
be a man out of the common who treats things lie sees 
in anything but the stodgy orthodox twaddle of the 
globe-trotter, he would never visit an Irish town the 
second time. The people pay their money to hear me 
as a satirist on the platform, and they expect me to 
wash off the critical and satirical side of my nature 
as soon as I leave the boards after amusing them, just 
as an actor washes off his paint and removes his 
make-up : to use their own words, " in that style which 
is peculiarly his ozvn, the style which makes anyone 
who looks at one of his cartoons in ' Punch' feel that 
they know 6 Harry Furniss, 1 he at once set the audi- 
ence at their case, making them feel in a much more 
increased degree that they too knew the eminent cari- 
caturist as intimately as if they had been for years 
Jus close companion. This is the charm of Mr. Fur- 
niss^s manner." " The whole aim of his work is 
friendly satire" and so on, and so on : and yet when 
I amuse my English readers with equally friendly 
satire on the subject of Ireland, the old woman 
representing the Press turns round, just as the 
old beggar woman did to the doctor, and anathema- 
tizes me; in the first place claiming me as an Irish- 
man (a compliment I doiit deserve), and then express- 



FLYING VISITS. 



37 



ing herself as exceedingly and sincerely sorry that 
Mr. Furnisss rotund little body wasn't well kicked 
while he was here." . . . 
It is not my intention to 
worry yon with a long 
letter, nor have I time to 
waste upon such stuff and 
nonsense ; but were I in- 
clined to take matters 
seriously, I might reply 
in the same vein as 
Shelley did when he zvas 
attacked : " When we 
consider who makes this 

accusation, and against whom, I need only rebut such 
afi accusation by silence and a smile." But, after all, 
isn't it sad that such balderdash should be printed f 
I can tell you it highly amused me to see my portrait 
as painted by the penny-a-liner. Some people said I 
wouldn't succeed in London because I didn't come with 
the orthodox halfcroivu in my pocket, but with a sub- 
stantial banking account. However, I at once got into 
harness with more work than I could do, or rather 
draiu ; and I have been pulling right up to the collar ever 
since. So much for the facts of the penny- a- il lie "-ner ! 




38 FLYING VISITS. 

The Professor has just heard a very good sample of 
an Irishism. His cabman, who met him by the early 
tram, remarked to him that " It's a foine thing to git 
up befoore ye go out in the morniri ! " Of course every- 
one in Dublin during this week must in duty bound go 
to the Horse Show, so one day I gave the Professor a 
ticket. In the evening I asked him what he thought 
of the magnificent show. He Jiesitated, coughed a lit- 
tle, and then to my astonishment said that he hadn't 
been there. "Ah, well, Horse Shows are not much in 
my line ; but I spent a very pleasant afternoon in 
Glasnevin Cemetery ! " He also subsequently informed 
us that he had paid a visit to the spot where Burke a?id 
Cavendish zvere murdered. We are beginning to think 
the Professor is of a very morbid turn of mind. . . . 

Yours* etc.* 




ROUND 



BELFAST AT 
PRESSURE. 



HIGH 



Jottings en route— The Legs of the Law— " When Constabu- 
lary's duty's to be clone "-Mr." MacMoneygle"— Off!— An 
Electrical Rush— Round the Town— A Mammoth Work- 
shop—Nearly Cremated— We are frozen, baked, galvan- 
ized, hammered, planed, tarred, and varnished— " Flesh- 
ers "— ' ' Far from the Madding Crowd "—The Spirit of 
Belfast. 

T is curious that a hundred 
miles should make such a 
difference in the character of 
a people as exists between the 
inhabitants of Dublin and those 
of Belfast. You notice the 
change as you travel from frivo- 
lous Dublin to money-making 
Belfast in the train, by means 
of the stranger who gets in for 
short journeys. For most of the 
distance you have the companion- 
ship of clericals of a party that 
now rules Irish opinion, but as 
you approach Belfast their places are taken 
by representatives of the Dissenters and 
Episcopalians. 




40 



FLYING VISITS. 



The character of the people you see on the 
railway platforms undergoes a change ; in the 
South we have the open-mouthed caricature of 

the Hibernian 
and an " ould 
lady " of the 
same class; an 
arm of the law 
(legs of the 
law, the R. I. 
C. miorht well 

o 

be called, 
judging from 
the length of 
their nether 
limbs) stands 
at attention. 
Toward the 
North the peo- 
ple look keen- 
er and more 
well-to-do, and 
when " constabulary's duty's to be done" it 
is done in a more agreeable fashion than in the 
South, judging from this pretty little tete-a-tcic, 
which I sketched at a station as the train 
stopped. Belfast is neither Irish flesh, Eng- 




ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 41 



lish fowl, nor good Scotch herring. It is a 
conglomeration of various trades and national- 
ities, a hotch-potch thick and strong. 

The cheery " Grand Juryman " welcomed 
us to his pala- 



tial hotel, and 
I spent most 
of my week in 
this comforta- 
ble hostelry, 
as Jupiter Plu- 
vius, Boreas 
and Co. were 
masters of the 
situation, and 
reigned su- 
preme out of 
doors. How- 
ever, I man- 
aged to see a 
good deal of 
the Belfast 
people, and 
quite 



enough 




of the city. I ought to say enough of the shop and 
the shopkeepers, for Belfast is but a vast empo- 
rium of commerce, and its inhabitants live, move, 



FLYING VISITS. 




and have their being in the sole company of their 
ledgers and tapes. They all worship at the shrine 
of one firm, Messrs. Money, Grubber and Co. 

Mr. " MacMoneygle " is the true type of the 
guide, philosopher, and friend, and the moment 
I arrived, rushed into my hotel, generously 
throwing himself at my disposal, and offering 
to pilot me through the mazy intricacies of Bel- 
fast ; so, as I had only one afternoon to spare, 
true to the instincts of the Saxon tourist, I ar- 
ranged for him to show me as much as he could 
of the town in that short space of time. 

On the afternoon in question, a neat " janting 
kyar" is ready at the door to the minute ; and be- 



ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 43 

fore mounting this vehicle in the well-known Irish 
sideways fashion, the worthy MacM. rushes me 
to an adjacent jeweller's, and my eyes glitter at 
the sight of a gorgeous clock in the window, 
bearing-an inscription to the effect that it was a 
present to the aforesaid MacM. on his wedding- 
day. "Only married last week/' explains that 
individual. I congratulate him, as he shoves me 
up on to the car, and off we go, only to pull up 
the next minute opposite a splendid club-house. 
I am dragged off the car, rushed up the 
stairs, shown the dining-room, reading-room, 
smoking-room, card-room, and billiard-room 
without taking breath, am introduced to the 
president, vice-president, secretary, and com- 
mittee, and finally find myself shaking hands 
with the waiters and hall-porters in the con- 
fusion of this electrical rush through the club. 
Up on the car again, and we stop before a 
large factory for a few moments, in which I am 
rapidly told the number of windows, the 
height of the chimneys, the quantity of 
employes, and the history, prospects, and a 
genealogical tree of every partner in the firm. 
I have just time to ejaculate, " Extraordinary, 
wonderful, how interesting ! " when we are 
whirled off again, only to be pulled up suddenly 



44 FLYING VISITS. 

opposite another immense manufacturing con- 
cern. Breathlessly I take in all the details of 
this firm in a few seconds. " Wonderful, how- 
very marvel ! " Jerk ! I am thrown pros- 
trate on my seat in this unwonted conveyance, 
as we once more dart off with lightning 
rapidity, and in twenty minutes I have 
done twenty princely establishments in this 
fashion, and my brain is a seething whirlpool 
of statistics connected with the rise or fall of 
each firm. 

But the piece cie resistance has yet to come. 
Our headlono- race against time is checked 
upon a bridge, and we are shown the river 
thronged with shipping. Vessels of all sorts, 
sizes, and nationalities all congregated there, 
huddled together like sheep ; from the impos- 
ing double-funnelled steamer and the lordly 
brig, to the common or garden fishing-smack, 
all the different means of aquatic locomotion 
are represented, and a perfect forest of masts 
rises skyward, like the quills of a gigantic 
porcupine. To inform me of the tonnage, 
build, horse-power, and speed of every boat 
visible is the work of a moment. Then off 
again, and in a couple of minutes we pull up 
at the offices of a vast shipbuilding yard, where 



ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 45 

the clang of hammers and the hissing of steam 
betokens the combination of Capital and 
Labor within. 

We are hurriedly introduced to the courteous 




^^sSiu^/v^ 



manager, who sizing me up from top to toe, or, 
in his own phraseology, from masthead to keel, 
accompanies a vigorous handshake with the 
remark, " You look bigger on the stage, Mr. 
Furniss ; " and, hurried on by the irrepressible 
MacM., takes us in tow for a tour round the 



46 



FLYING VISITS. 



works. By a tortuous path over planks, beams, 
huge pieces of wrought iron and colossal bolts 




and rivets, we are conducted into an immense 
shed, where, amid the glow from the furnaces 
and the flying sparks from the forges, big, 
swarthy smiths are wielding ponderous sledge- 
hammers, causing the sparks to fly out from the 
common centre like those of an exploding bomb. 
These sparks we dodge, and are hurried up a 
ladder to the shops where the fittings of the 
big Transatlantic Liners are made, through 



ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 47 

the lofty sheds where all the surplus stock is 
stored, and where the cool air chills all the 
marrow in your bones, rapidly down another 
ladder, and finally come face to face with the 
blast furnaces. 

For our edification the doors of these vast 
ovens are thrown open, and, in the red-hot 
glow in which we are suddenly bathed, we feel 
our hair frizz to the roots, a smell of scorched 




clothes pervades the air, and the ominous 
cracks from our boots portend that in another 
minute the soles will part company with the 
uppers. We realize the awful fact that in five 



48 FLYING VISITS. 

minutes we will be cremated alive ; so before 
becoming sacrifices to the ^od of fire, we tear 
ourselves away from the fearful but fascinating 
flames. The egg-dance is undoubtedly a won- 
derful acrobatic feat, but it is mere child's-play 
to the agility we have to display in threading 
our way through the pieces of metal in various 
stages of heat that are strewn in our path. 

From one busy hive of industry to another 
we rapidly pass, and at last, after being frozen, 
baked, galvanized, hammered, planed, tarred, 
and varnished, we emerge into the outer air, 
and find looming up in front of us the bare 
skeleton of a huge vessel, a future ocean mon- 
ster, in its embryo state ; before the flesh, so 
to speak, is put on outside it, or the mechan- 
ism placed within. 

Next to this infant is a leviathan of the 
same class, fully developed, ready to be 
launched, the Alpha and Omega of perhaps 
the most wonderful industry in Ireland. Our 
tour of inspection is complete ; we have super- 
intended the vessel from the roueh framework 
to the last coat of varnish ; we receive another 
hearty handshake and the best of wishes, as 
we take leave of the genial manager, our 
whilom guide, and still accompanied by the 



ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 49 

faithful MacM., find ourselves at last amazed, 
dazed, and deafened in the street. 

Once more on our wild career, we are rushed 
through the streets, the city of business and 
industry passing before us like a panorama, 
the while our guide rattles away like the 
inevitable lecturer attached to the panorama, 
describing everything as we go. Like a little 
boy on a back seat who always interrupts the 
lecturer, I venture to ask : 

" Where is the scene of the notorious 
Belfast riots ? " 

A word to the jarvey ; we rattle round a 
corner, up one street, down another ; a sudden 
stop. 

"There you are. That's the Police office 
outside of which the slaughter took place a 
few years ago ; now we are passing though the 
stronghold of the Catholic party — from this 
bridge you see the Orange quarters as well ; 
if you turn round you can make a sketch of 
both." 

This done, we are off again ; in half-an- 
hour more we are shown everything of interest 
remaining, and are deposited at our hotel door 
five minutes before our allotted time. 

" Well, good - by, Mr. Furniss ; glad to 



50 FLYING VISITS. 

have been of service to you/' and the good- 
natured Mac departs. 

Turning over the pages of my notebook, I 
find a mass of hieroglyphics which I myself 
cannot quite unravel, for we have gone through 
the city at an express rate which would have 
baffled the most electric of artists and the most 
fluent of writers ; but one peculiar word arrests 
my eye — " Flesher." This uneuphonious and 
highly disagreeable word is used by Belfast 
butchers to denote their calling. If this inno- 
vation spreads in Belfast, we will no longer 
hear of undertakers, dentists, bakers, or milk- 
men — they will be corpsers, toothers, breaders, 
and milkers ! 

In strong contrast to the lightning guide 
(" lightning-conductor " I might almost call 
him) who showed me the Belfast of business, 
was my literary friend in whose company I saw 
the Belfast of leisure. Not far from the mad- 
ding crowd runs a river which for its sylvan 
quietude and picturesque beauty can well com- 
pare with the lovely upper reaches of the 
Thames ; and on its placid bosom I spent an 
afternoon with a well-known literary celebrity, 
his charming wife, and an artistic friend, with 
whom I discussed literature, science, and art, 



ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 5 I 

interspersed with a fair amount of London 
society scandal, as an antidote to the conver- 
sation of the business men, or "cashers" I 
suppose they ought to be called, of Belfast. 








The words Thackeray spoke of the Belfast 
people in his day had a solid foundation, for 
they are exemplified in the public of the pres- 
ent time. They are astoundingly ignorant ; I 
am assured they read nothing, and people 
whose' names are household words in the outer 
world are totally unknown in Belfast, except 
perhaps a person who is a star in the commer- 



52 FLYING VISITS. 

rial firmament, and with whom an acquaintance 
may tend to increase the balance at their 
bankers. Charles Dickens was a failure here. 
" Who the Dickens is he ? " was the joke at 
the time. The joke cost nothing, so they 
laughed. 

The pests of Belfast are the street Arabs, 
scantily attired, bare-footed, and unacquainted 
with soap, who surround you and worry you to 
buy those advertising mediums, penny alma- 
nacs. You throw them a copper, and a free 
fight in the gutter results for the possession of 
it. It is the spirit of the place. These ragamuf- 
fins will fight their money-grubbing way upward, 
till at some future day, as heads of firms, they 
will be continuing this sordid, miserly struggle 
in palatial offices : Terence, Sandy, and Bill, 
the erstwhile struggling combatants for my 
copper in the gutter, are now Messrs. Flanagan, 
MacPherson, and Higgins ; and when under 
the office windows I draw pictures in colored 
chalks on the pavement for a living, they will 
pull down their office blinds and leave my 
proffered hat copperless on the window-sill. 
That is Belfast. 




Belfast. 



My dear M., 

I am glad yon enjoy " Some Circtclar Notes " 
that I am illustrating in " Punch" They are written 

in X *s best style, and no one appreciates them 

more than the good guide, philosopher and friend 
" Daubinct " himself. By the way, I did some of the 
drawings for them in Belfast, and Mr. " MacMoney- 
gle " came in fust as I was at work on them, and so 
kindly offered to take me round the town ; so it was 
this coincidence that made me describe my pleasant ex- 
perience of MacMonagle in the manner I did, calling 
him Mr. " MacMoneygle " in the same good spirit in 

which X christened his companion u Daubinet." 

Mr. " MacMoneygle " is probably not known to any 
great extent outside Belfast, ivhile " Daubinct " is 



54 FLYING VISITS. 

known all over the world ; and both he himself and 
his friends are delighted by X *s humorous refer- 
ences to him in " Punch" Of course I thought I was 
paying MacMonagle a compliment ; but the Press is 
up in arms against me, and he himself is in tears. 
OJi, dear / oh, dear ! is it only a Presbyterian minis- 
ter that can be understood in the North ? I said that 
neither a Frenchman nor 'an Irishman could stand 
chaff, but in this parallel between " Daubinet " and 
Mr. " Mac Money gle" Monsieur D. scores o?ie. Of 
course I wrote and explained my little joke to my good 
natured acquaintance, MacMonagle. The Press proved 
just as thin-skinned, and tried to swallow me up with 
columns of attack and abuse, but I simply left them to 
themselves, knozving as an old journalistic hand that 
being perfectly right in everything I said they were 
bound in time to contradict themselves. This they 
have done, as you will see by the papers I send you. Their 
own correspondents, whom they cannot very well con- 
tradict, have written long letters bearing me out in my 
statements, and I have received a number of private 
letters fully indorsing my views. . . . The Pro- 
fessor is in his element on the scene of the notorious 
Belfast riots ; for religious, enlightened, artistic and 
literary Belfast must find some relaxation from its 
highly-refined and cultured pursuits in faction- fighting 



FLYING VISITS. 55 

and bloodshed. The details and statistics anent these 
disturbances that the Professor has collected would 
make your hair stand on end. . . . 

Yours, etc., 




PS. — This morning I came across the following in 
an English paper, which I offer to Belfast people as a 
text for their sermon on the "fiery Fumiss," who had 
the astounding audacity to say that they were not a 
literary people. 

" That gratitude is indeed but ' a lively sense of 
favors to come ' would seem to be the moral of a re- 
cent incident in Belfast. It is said that upon opening 
two contribution boxes placed i?i the Free Library for 
a memorial portrait to the late Canon Grainger, who 
had presented a collection of antiquities to the Library 
worth £12,000, they were found to contain a number 
of pieces of blotting-paper, some free tickets for the 
Library, some other odds and ends, and five and two- 
pence in coppers and small silver ! " 

Munificent Messrs. Money, Grubber & Co. ! Where 
are your " cashcrs " now ? As the Press would say, 
" Comment is needless ! " 



FROM LEDGERS TO LEEKS. 



Counterfeit Celebrities — The Decay of Summer — "All that 
was left of them" — Miss Taffy's Teeth — Llandudno — 
Masculine Young Ladies. 



ONTINUING my 

travels, after a fort- 
night's sojourn in 
the Emerald 
Isle, I left it 
by the North 
Wall route 
f o r Holy- 
head, at half- 
past nine in 
the morning. 
Although the 
boats of the 
London and North Western Railway Com- 
pany are excellent, the cheap tripper is 
master of the situation, and it was not particu- 
larly edifying to have to witness the eccentric 
perambulations of gentlemen on the foredeck, 
who had evidently determined not to leave the 




FROM LEDGERS TO LEEKS. 57 

land of John Jamieson without sampling the 
famous national beverage. 

It is curious to note, when you are travel- 
line, the number of 
counterfeit present- 



ments of notable 
people you meet. It 




was at York Station, ^'^ 
I think, that a double F*'p ? i\i 
of Lord Beaconsneld ^ K U\ 
waited upon me in the „ ... 
refreshment room ; y_ 
in London I have 

frequently been driven by a spurious Mr. 
Gladstone, while Sir William Harcourt once 
cleaned my boots at a Northern hotel : so 
crossing from Ireland, it was gratifying to 
find that the captain of the good ship Sham- 
rock was a genial Colonel North, and that 
Sir Richard Temple was manfully doing his 
duty at the wheel ; and when I observed 
this I anxiously inquired if there were any 
reefs or sand-banks in our course on which he 
could wreck the ship in revenge for my many 
caricatures of him. 

Wales, although charming, is somewhat 
slow, and the local trains fully uphold the 



58 



FLYING VISITS. 



reputation of the country, as three hours were 
absorbed in getting to Llandudno from the 
time we arrived at Holyhead, a journey which 




ought to be accomplished in considerably less 
than half that time. One is recompensed to a 
certain extent, as between the beautiful scenery 
through which one passes, and the extraor- 
dinary names of the quaint little stations along 
the line, there is no lack of entertainment on 
the journey for the traveller, whether his strong 
sense be either of the sublime or the ridiculous. 
Skirting the picturesque coast one gets glimpses 



FROM LEDGERS TO LEEKS. 



59 



of very pretty little seaside places, with very 
ugly and big names. Families are waiting at 
the stations, and the inevitable pile of trunks, 
bandboxes, perambulators and birdcages 
mutely testify that the end of the season is 
near at hand, and the time is not far off when 
the hotel-keepers and landladies must garner 
up the rich harvest they have reaped during 
the summer to keep the pot boiling till the new 
crop of visitors arrives in the spring. The 
erratic rows of broken-down bathing-machines 




along" the coast — all that were left of the noble 
600, more or less — bore mournful testimony 
to the decay of summer. The journey from 
London to Llandudno is fearfully tedious, as 



6o 



FLYING VISITS. 



in the tourist season, the only time of the 
year when anyone wants to get there, the 
fast trains rush through without stopping, so 
it is not surprising that most of the visitors 
speak with a north-country accent. Although 
the natives are supposed to be the mildest and 
most inoffensive people imaginable, they are 
continually showing their teeth. It is curious 
to note the number of people with unfortunate 

dental malformations ; I 
have seen many a pretty 
Welsh face spoilt by this 
deformity. Llandudno 
was our destination, and I 
found it like all other 
British watering-places, 
dear and dull, ruled over 
in the daytime by a 
cork-blacked band of 
cockney minstrels, 
Punch and Judy, and 
that very common object, the ubiquitous 
seaside missionary, the psalm-singer of the 
shingles ; and at night at the invitation of 
Riviere they come to do homage at the shrine 
of music, admission 6d., including a pot-boiling 
picture show, marionettes and minstrels, and 




- 



I 















62 FLYING VISITS. 

an exhibition of performing fleas. These latter, 
I may remark, confine themselves to perform- 
ing on the pier at Llandudno. The hotels are 
excellent, the scenery grand, and the weather 
when I was there was simply perfect. What 
more could be required for the young and 
overworked ? Ireland and Wales are becom- 
ing very modernized. The traveller who, after 
having looked fruitlessly under the table for the 
traditional pig, has come to Wales, is disap- 
pointed to find that the handmaiden who 
brings him his matutinal 'hot water does not 
wear the national high stove-pipe hat, and 
that Davy Jones, the boots, does not warble 
sweet Welsh melodies while he polishes your 
shoes. That is only heard at the national 
Eisteddfodd. The only music I heard came 
from the drawing-room underneath my room 
— the twang was that of a Cockney and the 
song one of Coburn's. 

It has always struck me that young girls 
at the sea-side seem more in harmony with the 
place and far more at home than young men, 
who seem in eccentricity of costume to try to 
rival the " get-up" of the niggers. At Llan- 
dudno there was more than the average number 
of pretty, fresh-looking young girls, but some 



FROM LEDGERS TO LEEKS. 



63 



of their elders must have been shocked at the 
affectation and masculine swagger which they 
evidently thought it was " the thing" to assume, 
in strong contrast to the effeminacy of a certain 
type of young men, the. languid swell of the 
drawing-room, who even at the seaside makes 
a parade of his affected ennui. Discarding 
the once favorite parasol, the Llandudno 
young lady of &g^ 

to-day arms her- 
self with a good 
stout walkine- 
stick, which she 
carelessly swings 
as she whistles 
a popular tune, 
to the personal 
detriment of the 
maiden lady 
who, with hor- 
ror-stricken face 
is walking be- 
hind her, and 
thinking of the prim decorum with which the 
crinolined young lady of her day was taught 
to behave. I even noticed that some of these 
fair visitors, to complete the masculinity of 




64 FLYING VISITS. 

their appearance, were accompanied on their 
strolls by a couple of fox-terriers ! As each 
specimen of this species approached, I looked 
anxiously but in vain for a straw in her mouth, 
and a sporting paper in her hand ; these, no 
doubt, are in reserve for next year's fashion. 






Llandudno. 



My dear M., 

The thermometer is a hundred and some- 
tiling in the shade here, and I feel as zuarm as I did 
when inspecting the furnaces at Harland and Wolff's. 
However, I mustnt grumble ; I daresay yon have it 
hotter still dozun south. After the wretched zueather 
we have been having, no one appreciates the quick 
change more than myself and a few moments after 
arriving here I was out on the front, basking in the 
glorious sunshine. Barometer high, my spirits ditto. 
I had only been out a few minutes when I spotted, 
sprawling on the shingle with his arms under his 

head, the erstwhile energetic Sir X •, M.P. (you 

remember we met him up the river that day the lunch- 
boat was lost up a backwater). He greeted me with : 
" Hallo ! what brings you here ?" At that moment 
a donkey came along, drawing an erection covered over 
with bills announcing my entertainment, and as the 



66 



FLYING VISITS. 



man in charge was behind the conveyance mopping his 
manly brozu, he (the donkey, not the man) marched 
right into the small of my back, regardless of conse- 
quences. When I had recovered from the shock I gath- 
ered myself together, and pointing to the 
familiar clock tower „ i^fs^S) 

of the Houses of Par- 
liament on my bill, 




I said : " That's what 
brings me here ! " The 
M.P. gave a groan and 
ttimed Jus back on me. It 
was the last place in the world he wanted to be re- 
minded of during his zvell earned repose. 

The next thing to attract my attention was a small 
boy on the beach, who was unconcernedly making paper 
boats out of my handbills, a?id letting them drift out 
to sea ! Mac turned up just then, and his usually 
lively spirits seemed to be at zero. I pointed out to 
him my handbills floating away, but instead of burst- 
ing into indignation, he said : "It will be just as 
much use to the fishes as to the people here, for what 
sane being wants to hear a heated Parliamentary de- 
bate on a tropical afternoon like this ? Our agent 



FLYING VISITS. 



6 7 



tells me that tJiey have tried a matinee here once or 
tzvice before, but although they opened the doors to 
their widest extent, not a soul came in I That re- 
minds me that it's time you went and dressed. I did so, 
and for the first time it occurred to me Jwzv ridiculous a 
man looks on a glorious stinuy day at the seaside, rigged 
out in a black frock-coat and a tall hat, the orthodox 
matinee dress ; and as I emerged from the hotel in 
this attire, the sight of the rest of the visitors loung- 
ing about in their free-and-easy flannels was as gall 
and wormwood to me. . . . 




Strolling along the front on my way to the hall, I 
unconsciously attached myself to the tail of a small but 
interested crozvd, who were being entertained by the 
antics of Punch and Judy. I pitied the poor man sti- 



6S 



FLYING VISITS. 



fling inside his show, quite oblivious of the fact that I 
would have to manipulate my Parliamentary puppets 
in a few minutes ; and I was laughing quite as loudly 
as any of the spectators, when I heard : " Come along, 
do ! " at my elbow ; and Mac, who had been limiting 
for me up and down, and was hot and breathless, took 
me in charge, and bore me off to the hall, where I was 
flattered to find that a small but select audience awaited 
me. I suppose most of them had served their time in 
India or some other hot climate, for the place was like 
a DutcJi oven. 

Of course we had our evenings disengaged, and see- 
ing by an advertisement that there was to be a Beauty 






trz! 



mm 







Shozv at a circus, we made our way there after din- 
ner, anxious to see if the Welsh beauties looked as well 



FLYING VISITS. 



6 9 



by gaslight as they did in the sun ; besides, I have rather 
a predilection for circuses, as you know. The ringmas- 
ter placed five chairs in the middle of the tan, and 
called upon the beauty of Llandudno to come out and 
show itself, offering by way 
of inducement a silver watch, 
which was to become the prop- 
erty of the winner, and which 
had been advertised all over 
the town for the last week. 
This was evidently not suf- 
ficient temptation to the 
beauty of Llandudno, for 
none zvas forthcoming. As 
a stranger, L might have 
thought that the place was 
singularly destitute of fe- 
male loveliness, had L not 
gone on the pier the next 
evening, when, had a compe- 
tition been organized, the 
judges would have had a difficult task to " spot the 
winner." . . . 

Next time L come Jiere L will give my entertainme?it 
from the door of a bathing-machine on the beach, if 
the weather is as tropical as it is now; and so that 
the natives can understand me, I will give it in their 
own tongue. Fancy the " Member for Boredom " ad- 




70 FLYING VISITS. 

dressing the House in Welsh ! Here^s a part of his 

speech in English : 

" Yes, sir, I repeat, I have traversed this gigantic 
subject from the earliest use of this adhesive substance, 
when sticking-plaster zvas not a subject to jeopardize a 
Ministry, nor a surgical appliance the lever used with 
which to overt Jirow a Government ; and I venture to 
prophesy that when the prospective New Zealander 
whom the historian has imagined will be treading the 
ruins of this House, that the rancorous wound — / re- 
peat, rancorous wound — now caused by party strife 
through this momentous question, will be healed, — ■ 
healed by the use of black sticking-plaster, and not by 
zuhite sticking-plaster ; and that thus the awful warn- 
ings I have foreshadozved during the last two 1 tours 
will prove the means of having saved from destruction 
this great and glorious country ! " 

Could you imagine my delivering the same passage 
in Welsh, inteet to gootness ! Here it is : 

"Je, syr, ailddwedaf yr wyf wedi chwilio a chwalu 
y pwnc auferth hwn o adeg forenaf defuyddiad y syl- 
wedd ymlynol hzvn, pan nad oedd sticing-plastcr, yu 
bzvnc i beryglu Gwcinyddiaeth, nac yu offeyrn meddy- 
gol, gyda trosval y hzvn y dymchwel ir llyzvodraeth, 
ac yr wyfyu beiddio prophzvydo pan y bydd ir rhag- 
welgar New Zealander yr hwn y viae yr hanesydd 
wedi ddychmygu wna drvedio ar adfeilion y ty hzvn, 
bydd y briw llidiog — ailddywedaf—briw llidiogf yu 



FLYING VISITS. 7 1 

awr achoswyd gau genfigen plaid dnvy y cwestiwn 
pwysfazvr hwn wedi ei wella, ei wella dnvy ddefuyd- 
dio st icing-plaster die, ac nid sticing-plaster givyni 
ac felly bydd y rhybuddion ofnadwy wyfwedi rag- 
gysgod, yn ystod y ddwy awr ddiweddaf wedi profi yit 
gyfrwng i achub rhag dinystyr y wlad fawreddog a 
cheodfawr ho7t / " 

/ was meditating on the eicphonionsness of the Welsh 
language as I walked up the hill overlooking the bay, 
w hen I was struck by the beautiful effect of the sunlight 
on the deep blue of the water, and wondering at the like- 
ness of the whole scene to the Bay of Naples, when 
my artistic musings were disturbed by the voice of the 
Professor greeting me as he descended the narrow 
path. He wore an injured air, arid explained to me 
more in sorrow than in anger that he had paid two- 
pence to view the Camera Obscura at the top of the 
hill, but there wasn't a single cemetery to be seen in 
the whole district. Then, with a sigh : " They must 
be a healthy lot about here ! But there was a corpse 
washed up not far from here three weeks ago ; the 
coastguard 's just been telling me all about it ! " This 
was evidently some consolation to him. . . . 

Off to Southport to-morrow — no more matinees at 
the seaside, thank goodness ! . . . 

Yours, etc., 




SOUTHPORT-ON-SAND. 



The Sahara of Lancashire — An Artificial Seaside — The Fair 
on the Sands— The Wreck of the " William Fisher "—A 
Gigantic Centipede— Dry Land Sailing— A Family Photo 
— The New Theatre. 

S so much has been written from 
time to time about Southport, 
^ it is unnecessary for me to 
dwell, as I otherwise should 
do, on the beauties of the 
place, its splendid buildings 
and spacious streets ; in- 
stead I will mingle with 
the crowd, and endeavor 
to give you some sketches 
of character and incident. 

I am sure that the good-natured, joke-loving 
Lancastrians are not so sensitive and thin- 
skinned as to resent friendly, well-meant chaff, 
and to rise up in arms against a humorous 
and good-natured criticism. All of us, no 
doubt, with the weakness of human nature, are 
fond of criticising ourselves from our own point 




SO UTHPOR T- ON-SAND. 



73 



of view ; but we must sometimes see ourselves 
as others see us. 

To all appearance Southport, although be- 
loved of visitors — judging from the vast number 
of holiday-makers and seekers of health who 
come to revel in its life- 
giving atmosphere — does 
not quite hit it off with the 
author of its being — the 
sea ; for the Irish Channel 
has for years been receding 
from the imposing " front," 
and is now separated from 
it by a vast expanse of sand, 
which might well be called 
the Sahara of Lancashire. 
But the inhabitants, seeing 
their chances of boating and 
bathing becoming small by 
degrees and beautifully less, 
and unwilling to lose their 
ocean, have constructed a lake by the 
esplanade, into which they have brought the 
erring sea through the medium of pipes, 
determined at all costs to have a seaside, 
whether natural or artificial. Here the cheap 
tripper loves to disport himself in the very 




74 



FLYING VISITS. 



cockleshellest of pleasure boats, frantically- 
urging the frail craft on its devious course 
with uncertain stroke, heedless of the strict 
injunction placed on boards round the lake, 
" Boats keep to the right." However, as the 
water is only four feet deep, these erratic 
mariners are not so very much to be feared. 



ffggt 




The " dry-bobs," who do not care about trust- 
ing themselves on the bosom of the vasty deep, 
find a varied assortment of amusement pre- 
sented by the fair on the sands. Solicitous 
photographers, "Try your weight!" "Try 
your height ! " " Try your strength ! " try your 
temper ; switchbacks, swings, roundabouts, 
cocoanut shies, and every conceivable item that 



S O UTHPOR T- ON-SAND. J 5 

oeems essential to the happiness of the excur- 
sionist are to be found here ; and beach artists 
and photographers are as plentiful as grass- 
hoppers — sandhoppers, I should say. 

The first object to attract the visitor's 
attention is, strange to say, a ship. In the 
distance you see what you imagine is the name 
" writ large " on the bulwarks. Raising your 
glass to decipher the name, you read " Refresh- 
ments." This is the good ship William 
Fisher y whose captain, evidently of an in- 
quiring turn of mind, one fine day, or one 
stormy night, I forget which, ventured to 
approach too close to the shore and found 
himself fast on the ground. Resolving to wait 
for the next flood-tide, he turned in, and when 
he woke in the morning he found his ship high 
and dry on the sands. This was two years 
ago, and that flood-tide has never come ; but 
the ship has since been bought up by an enter- 
prising contractor, and now, under the cogno- 
men of " The Sands Museum and Refreshment 
Rooms," does a thriving business — admission 
2d. 

The pier, gradually extended to keep pace 
with the ever-receding sea, has now attained 
an enormous length, stretching itself like a 



76 FLYING VISITS. 

gigantic centipede across the waste of sand 
between the sea and the shore. To traverse 
this is quite a journey by the tram, which has 
been constructed for the convenience of visit- 
ors, and runs the whole length of the pier. If 




matters go on like this, one may expect to see 
Southport's splendid pier become a bridge 
between the coast of Lancashire and the Isle 
of Man. 

But perhaps the most unique feature of 
Southport is " dry-land sailing." This is ac- 
complished through the medium of yachts, the 
masts of which spring from a coffin-shaped 
hull mounted on four wheels. In these the 
visitor may sail through space undeterred by 
visions of the perils and qualms of the deep, 



SO UTHPOR T- ON-SAND. 



77 



and the only rocks to be feared are the nurse- 
maids with perambulators or the seaside don- 
keys. 

The bathing machines are few and far 
between, and are to be discerned far off on 
the horizon like scattered dots ; and Jack, 
leaving his chosen one on the banks of the 
Marine Park, bids her a fond adieu as he 



■"• T Ti!T^n 




departs on his long 
and tedious journey 
to disport himself 
in the sea. But af- 
ter all, the lake is 

the great attraction, and the boat - owners 
do good business ; so also do the photog- 
raphers, who ply their trade on the banks, 
and when you come across a boat close in 
shore containing a motionless family group, 
their faces pervaded with an angelic smile, you 
have not far to look for the camera. The lake 



78 



FLYING VISITS. 




is a busy hive of pleasure-seekers, and perhaps 

the happiest of 
all are the groups 
of laughing, 
bare-legged 
little children 
who throng the 

ri41 tRT7//- (JMf ^i^ banks, indulging 

in that ever 
popular juvenile 
pastime, pad- 
dling. Here and there on the sands are sundry- 
boards bear- 
ing notices 
which have 
long since ful- tb\ 
filled theirQ 
mission, and 
with the ther- 





SOUTH POR T- ON-SAND. 



79 



mometer at 8o° in the shade you are in- 
formed that the ice is unsafe and will not 
bear, when the very mention of ice makes 
your parched, sand-baked mouth water. 




Excavations are beino- carried on with the 
purpose of making another Marine Lake, in 
which the promenaders on the Esplanade take 
the liveliest interest, although at its present 
stage the work looks rather unsightly. Still 



80 FLYING VISITS. 

the undertaking is a gigantic one, and worthy 
of the master hand of Lesseps himself. 

One would have thought the inhabitants of 
Southport, with their magnificent Winter 
Gardens, desired nothing more in the way of 
amusement resorts, but in the week I happened 
to be there a splendid new theatre (attached 
to the Winter Gardens) was opened with great 
dcldt. Beautifully upholstered, lavishly dec- 
orated, and brilliantly illuminated, Southport 
theatre is qualified to stand in the very front 
rank, and the inhabitants are to be congratulat- 
ed on the possession of such a fine building. 
But if I continue in this strain I shall lapse into 
the familiar eulogistic guide-book style, which 
I strenuously endeavor to avoid, though in this 
case I could not omit the meed of praise. 




Southport. 



My dear M., 

A ny port in a storm — but Southport. You 
zvillsee what I mean if you read my article in " Black 
and White." If you sailed within two miles or so of the 
land, your yacht, or whatever your vessel might be, 
would be left dry, if not high, on the sands, and would 
be converted into a refreshment bar, or museum, or 
have swings from the masts, or be utilized for one of 
the thousand and one contrivances for the recreation of 
the holiday-making Lancashire lads and lasses wJiich 
I show in my drazving of Southport in " Punchy 
This latter I did from the window of my room in the 
hotel overlooking this festive scene. . . . 

After two days here zve summed up our courage, 
determined to outdo all previous explorers of deserts, 
and ventured across the trackless zvastes of sand that 



82 FLYING VISITS. 

stretch between Southport and the sea. I left a letter 
on the hotel table to be forzvarded to yon in case I 
never returned, and zve took a touching farewell of 
the Professor, who declined to leave his seat on the 
front, as he had just been sent a copy of the " Newgate 
Calendar " as a birthday present ; besides, he thought 
there might be a chance of forming one of an exploring 
party afterward, and feasting his eyes upon the specta- 
cle of our two skeletons bleaching in the sun. 

We fully realized the hazardous nature of our un- 
dertaking, so zve provisioned and armed ourselves ac- 
cordingly. We took with ?is — 

1. Two boxes of meat tablets. ( We took these on the 

strength of the advertisement, which assured 
us that one of them would keep a family alive 
for a month,) 

2. One machine for distilling fresh water from salt 

zvater. 

3. One mariner's compass. 
Jf,. One map of the world. 

5. One patent tent, which could be used also as an 

umbrella, a camp-stool, or a mosquito net. 

6. Three dictionaries of foreign languages. 

7. One medicine chest. 

8. One Winchester repeater each, in case we used up 

the meat tablets, or that advertisement about 



FLYING VISITS. 



83 



them should be an unscrupulous lie, which 

would compel us to depend on our guns for our 

dinners. 

Thus equipped ', we sallied fortli, and after two days' 

march we reached the end of the pier. Here we made 




a careful observation by means of the sun and the 
compass, and decided to strike out westward. After 
marching steadily on for some time, we came across 
what looked in the distance like a small pile of skele- 
tons, 'and we sliuddered to think that they were all that 
remained of some former foolhardy explorers, and trem- 
bled for our own fate. Hoivever, on closer inspection, 



84 FLYING VISITS. 

they proved to be the remains of a bathing-machine. 
I examined them, and gave it as my opinion that the 
machine was of Ancient BritisJi manufacture, and 
that probably our primeval ancestors used it when the 
sea was a few miles further in than at present ; but 
Mac brought his scientific knozv ledge to bear, and said 
No, that it zvas of the Roman period, and that, from 
the appearance of the rust on the zvheels, it had never 
been near salt water ; so we came to the conclusion 
that it must have broken down on the way to the sea, 
and had remained there ever since. Besides, Mac 
found close by, half buried in the sand, a bone, which 
he was sure, from the formation, was that of a bath- 
ing machine horse ; so it seemed to point out that our 
theory was correct. 

Before zve were quite out of sight of land we took 
careful note of some landmarks — an old boot, an empty 
beer bottle, a tinned beef can, and other " common ob- 
jects of the seashore.'" We came across a footmark — 
one footmark ! Hozv it zvas there zvas only one, at 
first puzzled tts considerably. Robinson Crusoe him- 
self zvas startled by seeing a footmark, and it zvas not 
a single one ; but in our case zve could see no trace of 
a second, so zve decided that we would not be honored 
by a savage appearing and kissing our feet, but that 
someone had dropped an old boot from a balloon, and 



FLYING VISITS. 85 

that it had been picked up and carried off by some jack- 
daw that kept a collection of odds and ends. 

The rest of our journey was uneventful, except that 
hunger came upon us, and we finished the meat tablets 
in a feiv mouthfuls, and were reduced to staying the 
pangs of hunger with the contents of the medicine 
chest. That advertisement is an infamous lie / The 
meal we made off the medicine chest had a stupefying 
effect, which incapacitated us from further endeavors 
to explore the Lancastrian Sahara ; so we made an- 
other observation, and directed our zueary footsteps to 
the Promenade, arriving just in time to dress for the 
entertainment in the evening. 



Nice appreciative audience, thanks to the energetic 
local manager, whose hands are always full ivitJi 
dramatic performances, but especially just at present, 
as the new theatre has only been opened this week. 
The large Winter Gardens are typical of Southport ; 
for within their precincts all the indoor amusements of 
the place are concentrated. In the new theatre just 
mentioned Miss Kate Vaughau and company were 
playing in " The Dancing Girl," yours truly enter- 
tained the inhabitants with " The Humors of Parlia- 
ment " in the Pavilion Theatre, a promenade concert 



S6 FLYING VISITS. 

was being held in the large conservatory, while a cir- 
cus was doing good business in the grounds. I think 
that next time I come to Southport lie ill deliver a recita- 
tion in my entertainment ', entitled '" Through Sandiest 
Southport ; or, How I Found the Sea." Mae will ap- 
pear as " Little Sandy " in the circus, while the Pro- 
fessor will impersonate the villain in " The Murder 
in the Red Barn " at the new theatre. . . . 

Yours, etc., 




THE BRIGHTON OF THE NORTH. 



The Spa and its Manager— A Contrast— The Jockey Postil- 
ions—A Sketch after Leech— Familiar Figures on the 
Spa — The Wielder of the Baton— A Band of Undertakers 
— The Visitors' Daily Programme. 

r; 

CARBOROUGH 

at different times 

has been called 

Escadeburgh, 

Scearburg, and 

Scardeburgh. It 

is a wonder it has 

never been chris- 

ened Spaborough, 

for the Spa is the chief 

feature of the place, 

and Mr. Francis 




Goodricke, whose portrait 
I give here, the well-known 
manager of the Spa, is the chief person. A more 




FLYING VISITS. 



striking contrast than Scarborough and South- 
port can hardly be imagined. Flatness in the 
first-named place is unknown. Steep precip- 
itous cliffs rear up their rugged heads on ei- 
ther side ; in place of the long spider-like pier, 
there is a short, solid stone one ; the sea, in- 
stead of being far away out, beats against 
the promenade, and frequently dashes over it ; 
and the class of visitors is of a different 
tone altogether. Scarborough is well known 
as the Brighton of the North ; Southport, 
I should say, is the Ramsgate. 

Materfami- 
lias is popu- 
larly supposed 
to go to the 
seaside with 
her bevy of 
daughters with 
much the same 
intentions as a 
^farmer takes his 
f little flock of 
^lambs to the 
market — to dis- 
pose of them to the highest bidder; and 
the stranger, arriving at Scarborough for the 






THE BRIGHTON OF THE NORTH. 89 

first time, and meditating upon this point, 
would doubtless think that here the market 
is in a flour- ^ 

ishing state ^ ^ ^^ _^ _^ ^ 

indeed, for 
there is a 

gala - like f^MYA? iJ^ft* 
appeara nee I- «j r m — vJf J!L JL^ | 
given to the 
streets by the equipages darting about in all 
directions — the horses all bestridden by pos- 
tilions clad in jockeys' costumes of all colors 
of the rainbow. I well recollect that some 
of John Leech's happiest sketches were done 
in Scarborough, and that choice picture of his 
of the portly invalid in the pony-carriage, say- 
ing, " Now these postil- 
ions never seem to be un- 
well ! Upon my word, I 
verily believe if I were to 
change places with that 
little chap I should be ever 
so much better ! " still 
lingers in my memory ; 
but I had an idea that 
these postilions had vanished since Leech's day, 
an idea that was soon dispelled when I arrived 




go 



FLYING VISITS. 



at Scarborough to find such numbers of them 
flitting about. I saw a corpulent Jehu slum- 
bering upon his box-seat, and made a sketch 
of him — perchance this stout, middle-aged 
individual was himself the diminutive postilion 
of Leech's sketch ! 

But if the jockeys remain, the old Spa of 
those times has disappeared, 
with its crinolines and Dun- 
dreary whiskers, and Phcenix- 
like there has arisen from its 
ashes the present noble struct- 
ure ; and in place of Leech, 
Sothern, and other contem- 
poraries who frequented this 
charming watering-place, and 
whiled away the hours with 
Be IPs Life and Harry Lor re- 
quer, we now find familiar 
figures on the Spa reading 
Black and White and Rudyard 
Kipling's latest. Lord Londesborough may 
be seen chatting with Sir George Womb- 
well about Mr. Blundell Maple's recent 
big purchase of Common, in the hearing 
of the Jubilee Plunger ; Lady Ida Sitwell 
is pensively contemplating the sea — I refrain 




92 



FLYING VISITS. 



from reperpetrating the worn-out joke to 
the effect that her husband would " sit 
well " again for Scarborough, but agree with 
the spirit of it. Mr. James Payn is there 
"takkin' notes," and our dear old friend Toole 
is fortifying himself with some fresh air for 
the arduous undertaking of amusing the pub- 
lic in the evening at the pretty little Spa 

Theatre. But 
throughout the 
season, year after 
year, no figure is 
better known than 
the portly one be- 
longing to Herr 
Meyer Lutz, the 
popular and 
talented wielder of 
the baton at the 
Gaiety. One 
" comic man of a 
paper" — to quote the Belfast press — seeing 
Mr. Lutz and his merry band seated in the 
stand all with tall hats on, remarked that they 
looked like so many undertakers ; and really 
it is impossible to find a better simile than 
Mr. George R. Sims has done for the funny 




THE BRIGHTON OF THE NORTH. 



93 



appearance of a circle of men on a sunny 
morning at the seaside, each crowned with 
the incongruous "topper." 

As you look out from your hotel window 
upon the bay, a pretty sight is presented by 
the flotilla of brown-sailed fishing smacks, 
some at anchor and some cruising about ; for 
Scarborough is not a merely ornamental 
watering-place, but a fishing centre as well, 
and very picturesque do the tall, bronzed, big- 
booted fisher- 
y- 



men look as 

they lounge 

about the 

quay, hands 

in pocket, 

pipe in mouth, 

while their 

boats lie at anchor in the bay. They are 

a fine lot of men, these well-built, sturdy 

toilers of the deep at Scarborough, worthy 

descendants of the hardy, old-time Northern 

sailors. 

The visitors' daily programme varies little. 
In the morning they visit the Spa, and listen 
to the sweet music discoursed by Mr. Lutz's 
band, or venturing on the ail-but perpendicular 




94 FLYING VISITS. 

tramway, they are taken swiftly up the side 
of the precipitous cliffs on their perilous 
pilgrimage to Mr. Sarony's photographic 
studio. The morning is soon whiled away 
in this fashion, and the afternoon is general- 
ly devoted to a drive round the charming 
country surrounding the town. In the even- 
ing the Spa is the attraction. Mr. Lutz and 
his merry men are to the fore again, and their 
music is greatly appreciated by the well- 
dressed throng of fashionable people strolling 
up and down the spacious promenade by the 
sea — a beautiful scene on a still summer night. 
Others can spend the evening in the theatre, 
where there is always some amusement pro- 
vided by the enterprising management, which 
fully deserves the patronage so freely ac- 
corded. 



iff"/ 



Scarborough, 



My dear M., 

It is a funny thing, which I fail to under- 
stand, and of which I cannot get any explanation, that 
my " Humors of Parliament" which is in no way a 
party picture, and which, as you know, is accepted 
equally by the Radical, Tory, Liberal, and Unionist 
press, should be chiefly patronized by one party — the 
Tories. Any stranger travelling with me might well 
suppose that 99 per cent, of the people of Great Britain 
are Conservatives, zvere he to judge only from my audi- 
ences. As you know, I hold the scales of political feel- 
ing as equally as I can ; if one side goes down at any 
time, the other follows suit the next moment. 

Since last writing you I have been to Derby, 
Birmingham, Nottingham, and Sunderland ; and it 
was in fear and trembling that at the first mentioned 



96 FLYING VISITS. 

place I produced the massive form of Sir William 
Harcourt before an excellent audience, naturally com- 
posed, I thought, of his constituents, but the roar of 
laughter with which the caricature was greeted rather 
puzzled me, until I was informed that there was hardly 
a supporter of his in the place ; zvliile at Sunderland 
the much worshipped member and orator received me 
with open arms, and bestowed upon me all the hospital- 
ity in his power, but he drew the line at coming to the 
hall in the evening to hear " The Humors of Parlia- 
ment T Here again, had the Liberal member come, he 
would have been in a minority in a hall filled with 
supporters of the Opposition side, even in a town which 
is always represented by a member of Mr. Storey s 
advanced views, and so I have found it north, south, 
east, and zvest. Perhaps on my next tour I shall have 
the Opposition side, for whom I cater just as much, 
and for zvJwm I have just as much regard. Now here 
in Scarborough, where people meet from all parts, my 
audience is naturally not so one-sided. The ge?iial 
Frank Lockwood, with some high luminary of the lazv, 
was sandwiched between two of the hottest Tories. 
Speaking of sandwiches, I would say that tJiere is 
food for thought in the fact that Liberals and Radi- 
cals fought shy of an entertainment which is sup- 
posed to good-naturedly give them an insight into the 



FLYING VISITS. 97 

Legislative Chamber they talk so much about, and in 
which they take such an interest. I have consulted 
lots of people upon this point without being able to 
unravel the mystery. I took the Professor into my 
confidence the other evening as he was packing away 
the lantern and paraphernalia after the evening's per- 
formance. He thought deeply and lie thought long, 
and at last he said: " Parliament, to tell you the 
truth, isn't much in my line ; but I've often wondered 
why you never show the House of Commons after the 
dynamite explosion. And then there's that member 
who shot himself on Hampstcad Heath — that would 
make a splendid slide. I could fire a pistol from the 
back, and you could writhe in supposed agony on the 
platform. That would draw the other class ; and if 
you want any more horrors — not /minors — why ' I've 
got 'em on my list ! ' " . . . 

Yours, &c, 




SANCTITY AND HAMS. 



York— An Artistic Joke— J. L. Toole and the Native— Up the 
River— A Clerical City — A Church-like Theatre — York as 
a Commercial Centre. 



ORK is famous for 
three things — its 
Minster, its Lord 
Mayor, and its ham. 
Its Minster is 
second to none in 
England, its Lord 
Mayor takes pre- 
cedence of all others, and its 
hams, perhaps, are more 
widely known and appreciated than either. 
You need not go to York to taste its hams ; 
few, I think, travel purposely there on the 
chance of seeing its chief civic dignity ; 
but the Minster must be seen to be admired, 
and having admired it, and had a walk 
round the walls, you arrive again at the 
station, whence, if you be an average British 
tourist, you will depart to fresh fields and 




SANCTITY AND HAMS. 



99 



pastures new. For those who are inter- 
ested in antiquity, however, a few days will 
hardly suffice to revel among the stones and 
mortar of former generations. 

Leaving the station, before going over the 
river on your way to the Minster, the first 
object you see is an ex-Lord 
Mayor upon a pedestal. This 
is the first and last artistic joke 
you will find in this decorous 
Cathedral City. Why an old 
gentleman, who we are told 
was everything that was good 
and laudable, should be 
grossly caricatured in stone 
in the city for which 

She did so much, is a 
secret which is not 
divulged. It is sad 
jenough to have re- 
corded that the dear 
old man suffered badly 
from gout in his feet, 
if we are to judge 
from the statue; but it is too bad to have 
published the fact that this benefactor of 
York was also an inebriate — at least, it 




IOO 



FLYING VISITS. 



would not be complimentary to the sculptor 
to think that he had imagined the old gentle- 
man in a state of intoxication. To complete 
the joke, when I came up I found a policeman 
sadly contemplating the statue, evidently 

thinking it was 
hi oh time it was 
removed, and I 
must say that I 
concur with him 
entirely. 

Perhaps 
is not in 
province 
dwell upon 
beauties of 
Cathedral, 
' t i 




it 
my 

to 
the 
the 
but 



strange 



the Prince of comedians, 



rather 
I have 
never heard 
them discoursed 
upon by anyone 
with Greater fer- 
vency than by 
Mr. J. L. Toole, 



whom I again accidentally encountered 
when I was in York. You would think the 



SANCTITY AND HAMS. 



101 



people of York, with their Cathedral, had 
quite sufficient in the way of places of worship. 
But no ; in addition to the imposing old 
Minster, there are innumerable churches, 
which you will find at every turn. Speaking 
of this characteristic, Mr. Toole says that he 
met a native of York, and asked him which 
was his church. 

" My church ? " says the mystified towns- 
man. 

" Yes, your church," said Mr. Toole ; " I 
thought there fffe^S} 
was a 



church jfe'it ^ 
to every inhabi- 




tant in York ? " 
But, like the 
young people 
in Mr. D u 
Maurier's pict- 
ure in a late 
number of 
Punch, who go abroad to see the country, but dis- 
cover a hotel with a good tennis-lawn, on which 
they spend all their time, I, being passionately 
fond of " going up the river," early in the morn- 
ing, got into a skiff, and passing under the grace- 
ful bridge which spans the river close by the 



102 



FLYING VISITS. 



Minster, rowed quickly out of the town away 
up into the peaceful upper stretches of the 
Ouse. I may be excused on the ground that 
this was not my first visit to the charming 
old city, as on a previous occasion I had "done" 
the beauties of the Cathedral, walked the walls, 
a la Blondin, and explored the quaint old 
streets and shops ; but somehow a city or town 
of antiquity in activity always inspires me with 
a desperate longing for exercise and bustle, 
so as an antidote I went off to 
Sheffield. The inhabitants of 
York seem so imbued with the 
clerical element, that the greatest 
activity shown by them is in 
rushing off to services ; in fact, 
everything seems to be under the 
shade of the Minster. Even the 
theatre is built like a church. I 
have not been inside, so I cannot 
say whether the inside is in keep- 
ing with the exterior, or if the 
plays are limited to those model 
pieces with moral objects by 
Pinero or Henry Arthur Jones. The popular 
member, Mr. Frank Lockwood, whose portrait, 
with his pleasant, beaming countenance, meets 




SANCTITY AND HAMS. 



03 



=3,") 



you at every turn, greets me as a fellow- 
member of the T. P. C, and his dress is em- 
blematical of that mystic club. 

The only sign of commercial activity in 
York, to the ^/, Oj ^ "^ p 
ordinary ob-zrt^Cc.^ &~ ^ 
server,seems 
to be the 
smoking 
chimneys of 
Rowntree's 
manufactory. 
Is this going 
to spread its 
branches, 
andwillYork 
at some 
future date 
bud out as 
a commer- 
cial centre ? 
Are the gates 
and bars to be transformed into entrances to 
large factories, a district railway constructed 
round the walls, and the Cathedral surrounded 
and eclipsed by forests of chimneys? Let us 
hope not. 



1 

! 1 Sit— r > 





York. 



My dear M., 

Left Harrogate on Friday ', after giving a 
matinee there the day before ; and am very sorry I 
cotcld not stop longer so as to do an article on it in 
" Black and White? I zvill have to leave it till next 
visit. Thursday was a wretchedly rainy day, and 
everybody was gruinbling because they couldrft get out. 
Dont see why they sJwidd grumble ; they came tJiere 
for the waters, and they had got them ! 

Despite Jupiter Pluvius, there was not standing 
room — not even umbrella standing room — in the hall 
at the Spa in which I endeavored to entertain the B.P. ; 
indeed, I had to hand my chair doivn off the platform 
to a young lady who had stood all through the first 
part. 

We stopped at the Queen Hotel ; very comfortable 



FLYING VISITS. 



105 



indeed, and most sociable — dancing in the evening, and 
all that sort of tiling. As this hotel stands back from 
the road in what I supposed were its own grounds, I 
was surprised to see the faces of a small crowd of 
natives flattened against the windows of the ballroom 
intently watching the proceedings, but I afterward dis- 
covered that there was a right-of-way past the frottt 




^d 



of the hotel, and that the inhabitants used this as a 
gratuitous peep show. 

At six next morning I was roused from my slum- 
bers by an imperious knock at the door. " What 
is it ? " I asked, somewhat gruffly, rather ruffled at 
having my dreams thus rudely dispelled. " Why, the 
waters, sir ! " came from outside the door, in tones 
that betokened that the speaker was surprised at my 
asking the question. " But I don't want my hot water 



io6 



FLYING VISITS. 



at this time of the morning ! " " No, sir, the wa- 
ters ; it's time to get up and drink them ! " 

I tried hard to go to sleep again, but it was of no 
use ; so I got up and looked out of my window, when 
I sazv some people being carried off in what seemed to 
me to be a prison van. I dressed myself, and got down- 




stairs just as they zuere returning. They zvere the 
visitors who had come to drink the waters, and the ex- 
pressions on their faces made me feel glad that 1 had 
not gone with them. I mean to take the first oppor- 
tunity I have to come back to Harrogate. It is 
true the waters are not very nice ; but then I don't 
drink them, while the place and the people are both 
charming. . . . 



FLYING VISITS. 107 

By the way, I am much obliged for the lecture you 
gave me in your last letter about not taking sufficient 
exercise. I believe you are right; for I am getting 
most alarmingly stout. Wish I had followed Dick 
Turpins example, and ridden Jiere. As I didiit do 
that, I did what seemed to me to be the next best tiling 
— / rowed when I got Jiere. Mac and I got up at 
some unearthly hour this morning, and made our way 
down to the banks of the Ouse, where zve found plenty 
of rowing boats, but no one to hire them from, 
though there was a barge moored close in shore, from 
its curtained windows evidently the residence of the 
proprietor of the boats round about it. We told each 
other that we were sorry for the proprietor : we must 
zvakc him up ; but York is a sleepy place, and no efforts 
of ours could rouse the somnolent inhabitant of the 
barge. We yelled, we zv hist led, we shouted, and finally 
threw bricks on to the deck that constituted his roof, 
but all to no purpose. However, we had come there 
for a row, and a roiv zve were going to have, so zve 
determined to feloniously seize a boat. 

I know you are fond of going " up the river" but I 
think you would not have exactly cared about putting 
in an appearance at Henley Regatta in the craft we 
managed to get hold of. The only boat zve could get at 
possessed tzvo oars, but one was about three feet long 



io8 



FLYING VISITS. 



and the other about nineteen. This was rather a 
drawback, and they were the only tzvo visible ; how- 
ever, we stealthily 7indid the painter and sJwved off. 
I took stroke with the short oar, and, rowing about J$ 
to Macs 3, we managed to keep the boat more or less 
in the centre of the river , but she moved very slowly. 
I was getting exercise though, and that was what I 
had come for. 




But there was an earlier bird than either of us up to 
catch the worm — need I say an angler? He was 
squatting on his heels on the bank in what I should 
think was a very uncomfortable position, steadfastly 
regarding his float ; and as we came cJiurning along 
he called out to us : " Nazv, then, mak sharp ! doaiit 
fraaten all f fish awaa ! " / zuas doing my best, for 
I had increased my stroke to something like 60 a min- 
ute ; but Mac, having a sy mp at liy for anglers, put his 



FLYIXG VISITS. 109 

back into it, quite regardless of the steering, and the 
consequence was that just as we were abreast of the 
angler we described a beautiful curve in the water, and 
Mac got his oar mixed up with the line, and the more 
the frantic fisJicrman roared at us the more we rowed, 
until zve had completely circumvented his line and got 
it knotted around everything in the vicinity. He fairly 
danced with rage upon the bank, while zve simply 
roared with laughter in the boat. Eventually, in our 
endeavors to get free, my wr etched apology for an oar 
slipped out of the rowlock, and Mac, giving a mighty 
sweep with his at that moment, we ran violently into 
the bank, with a shock that caused us to land in a 
most unexpected and undignified manner, and at the 
same time disentangled us from the line; so we left 
the disciple of Lzaak Walton to claim salvage on the 
boat, and walked back to the bridge we started from, 
where on the other bank we found a boat more worthy 
of our aquatic pozvers, so zve had a rozv in tJie oppo- 
site way, " where the angler ceased from troubling 
and the weary zvere at rest " — in bed ; for it zvas still 
early, and zve hardly saw a soul on cither side of the 
river. . . . 

Taking a zvalk through the town while waiting for 
breakfast, I passed an old hotel which zvas the hotel 
last time I zvas in York. I dont know whether I eve* 



no 



FLYING VISITS. 



told you of a funny experience I had there once. I 
was 011 a walking tour tJirougJi Durham and York- 
shire, and at the time I speak of I found myself in 
York, ordering my dinner in the coffee-room of the — 
let us say — " White Goose," when I noticed at the bot- 
tom of the wine list the name of the proprietor, and I 
theiz recollected that I had met him in a hotel in Lon- 
don, upo?i which occasion 
he told me that if ever I 
was in York I was not to 
forget to go to the " White 
Goose" of zvliicli he was 
the proprietor, and where 
I was to consider myself 
his guest. As I don't 
much care about being 
under obligations of that 
kind, I was rather glad 
than otherzvise that I had 
completely forgotten the invitation ; but the proprietor 
had noticed my name on my handbag, and lie promptly 
came to me, reminded me of my promise, and insisted 
on my having dinner with him in his private room. 
The next day he drove me about in his dog- cart, and 
showed me the race-course and other places of interest. 
All this was very kind indeed, I thought ; so judge of 




FLYING VISITS. Ill 

my surprise when, on leaving, I fotind myself charged 
with two dinners in a private room and t lie hire of the 
trap for the day ! It is a long time ago now, and I 
may have been charged for the driver — mine host. 
No wonder he died rich. I was fairly, or rather un- 
fairly, " bowled by a Yorker ! " 

Returning over the bridge we met, to our surprise, 
the Professor, wJw, with radiant face, was descending 
the steps leading down from the walls. He informed 
us that he had been to inspect the spot where Black 
Bess dropped dozvn dead, and had then spent a most 
enjoyable hour among the tombstones in the cathedral 
— this with the air of a man who considers he has done 
a good morning's work. . . . 

Yours. &c, 




SHEFFIELD IN BLACK AND WHITE. 



Wsm 



A Picture of Sheffield, Black— Another, White—" Aa know 
that man, he cums fra' Sheffield " — EndclirT Wood — 
Puzzle, find the Queen. 

*^' ^ BBir ^ EATED at the 

/\ window of my room 
ifej in my hotel at 
Pi Sheffield, I turned 
r over the leaves of 
my blotter, and 
suffering I suppose 
from ennui y sat list- 
lessly gazing at the 
i n k-b espattered 
page. I joined a 
line here and there 
with my pen, to 
make the strokes 
look like chimneys, 
and a few touches 
were sufficient to transform the mass of 
blots into a very truthful representation of 
Sheffield ! I here reproduce it as an initial to 



tiiiftl 

,,,,„. ..<•!••. *»'«,«" 



t~*iti$0j£*s&$ 



SHEFFIELD IN BLACK AND WHITE. 1 13 

this part of my article. Tearing out this page, 
I came to a nice, clean, white one underneath, 




with only a spot here and there ; this brought 
me back twelve years, and I here seemed to 



U4 



FLYING VISITS. 



see Sheffield as I saw it then, white with snow. 
It was in the winter of '79, I think, that I first 
visited the cradle of cutlery. I arrived on 
Christmas Day, as a special artist for the 
Illustrated London News. Although the town, 
with its mantle of snow, was completely white, 

things looked black. 
The distress was terri- 
ble, and I was brought 
face to face with it in 
my visits to the un- 
employed, who looked 
upon me with eyes of 
suspicion, evidently 
under the impression 
that I was a bailiff 
preparing for action. 
It was, therefore, pleas- 




ant to visit it again 



under more prosperous 
aspects ; and whoever 
y a nowadays sees a pros- 
I'jj perous - looking man 
of the type I show in 
my sketch here, of razor-like sharpness, with 
bristly tufted chin, and heart of steel, may 
" know that man, he cums fra' Sheffield." 



SHEFFIELD IN BLACK AND WHITE. 115 

I do not refer to the thousand and one 
wonderful manufacturing concerns of the town ; 
a description of these is a futile subject in 
itself. But during my brief visit I strolled out 
to admire the beauties of Endcliff Wood, 
which was given to the people as a memorial 
of the Jubilee. All details can be gleaned 
from an inscription upon a stone in the centre 
of the park. And apropos of this stone, I may 
remark that if the people of York have erected 
a joke at the expense of their ex-Lord Mayor, 
the people of Sheffield have, in their Jubilee 
Stone, an unconscious joke at the expense of 
a more august personage. 





Sheffield. 

My dear M., 

When I arrived at the hall last evening I 
found a gentleman waiting to interview me. He zvas 
a broth of a boy from the Emerald Isle — one of those 
poor innocent, ignorant men who spend their Saturday 
pennies on buying the trash printed by the so-called 
" National Press" to delude them. One of them might 
well alter its title to " United Ignorance." I worft 
charge the editor for this suggestion. The gentleman 
in question arrived at the door of the hall armed with 
his blackthorn, and a varied and extensive vocabulary 
of epithets which had been applied to me in the pages 
of " U. I. " from which he had culled them ; and while 
he " waited for me" he harangued the crowd, and gave 
them an entertainment they had not bargained for ; 
but instead of the limelight he found the bull's-eye of 



FLYING VISITS. 



117 



a policeman upon him, and he melted away like a dis- 
solving view in the tender care of two burly Yorkshire 
" bobbies." 

The weather has been awful, and we have tvandered 




from windozv to zvindow of the hotel in search of some 
passing interest ; but all zve could see through the rain 
-and the dense smoke was the cheering advertisement on 
the walls, " Don't ivorry ; try Sunlight Soap ! " This 
at first had a soothing effect upon us, and we lapsed 



Il8 FLYING VISITS. 

into a more pJiilosopliic frame of mind ; but the con- 
stantly recurring sight of " Don't worry ' ' had in time 
a quite contrary effect, and by the end of the second day 
we hated that advertisement with a most fervent 
hatred. It is all very well to be told not to worry 
when you are in a rather perturbed state of mind ; 
but when you are quite at ease witJi yourself and every- 
body else, and not t J linking of worrying about anybody 
or anything, it is simply maddening ! 

The natives, judging from their appearance, did 
not pay very much heed to the injunction of the adver- 
tisement, especially some ragged urchins who were 
playing about the railings outside the hotel with a 
lightheadedness only equalled by that of their contem- 
poraries in Cockayne. 

The Professor seemed quite surprised that we took 
our walk out into the fresh and beautiful country, in- 
stead of through the noisy streets. The town, with its 
overhanging smoke and gloom, was much more con- 
genial to him ; indeed, so dismal did the place look 
when we were there, that I am astonished the people 
are always so bright and pleasant. They are evidently 
not influenced much by their surroundings. . . . 

. . . The Professor waxed quite eloquent about 
the town, and ivould have been a big success as an ora- 
tor at the cutlers feast, with his similes about wise 



FLYING VISITS. 119 

saws, double-edged remarks, hearts of steel, wrists of 
iron, flashing blades, &c. ; and he seemed quite ag- 
grieved when zv e told him that we had used up all those 
metaphors during our visits to the various cutlery 
works. Then he said : " Ah ! but I don't think you've 
been through Messrs. Ruddigore, Morgue and Co.'s 
place?" We said wed never even heard of them. 
This seemed to both surprise and deliglit J dm, and he 
replied : " Why, that's where they make surgical in- 
struments, pig-stickers, and— and " (this with a fiend- 
ish grin) " the knives for the guillotine ! " / went there 
late at night specially to see them making those, and 
the manager, Mr. Colde Shudderer, shozved me a 
room full of ancient instruments of torture, from 
thumb-screzvs down to the scissors they used to cut 
criminals' ears off with. I haven t had such a treat 
for years. . . . 

Yo7irs, &c, 




THE HOME OF -YE PANTILES." 



The Discoverer of the Waters— The Elixir of Life— Tunbridge 
Wells as it was — Movable Dwellings — A Scene of Dev- 
astation—Ye Pantiles of the Past— The Ancient Dis- 
penser of Chalybeate — " Feyther's lookin' ! " — A 
Second Edition of " The Jumping Frog." 




INCE Dudley, Lord 
North, we are in- 
formed by the local 
guide book, was " a 
distinguished noble- 
man and gay young 
companion of Prince 
Henry, the eldest son 
of James I.," and 
who first discovered 
the waters that have 
made Tunbridge 
Wells famous, the 
Kentish village has grown into one of the most 
fashionable resorts in Great Britain. This gay 
young sprig of nobility, we are told, had ruined 
his constitution at the early age of twenty-four ; 
so, like a bad boy, he was packed off into the 
country, far away from his riotous companions. 



THE HOME OF " YE PANTILES:' 121 

The chosen spot for the erring one's rustication 
was Tunbridge. Passing through a wood while 
out driving, he happened, naturally enough, to 
feel thirsty, and his eager eyes catching sight 
of a small bright stream running close to his 
path, he alighted from his carriage for a closer 
inspection. The chronicler does not say 
that he drank any of the water, but merely 
examined it, and, " fancying that it was 
endowed with some medicinal properties, he 
commanded his servants to bottle off some of 
the water." This is proof positive that this 
Lothario had at least one empty bottle in the 
carriage with him. He took the specimen back 
to London, and his physician declared it to be 
medicinal water of inestimable value. He had, 
indeed, discovered the elixir of life, for he 
returned to the stream and drank of it for 
three months, and this fortified him so that he 
threw physic to the dogs, snapped his fingers 
at the doctors ever afterward, lived a life of 
gayety, and died at the advanced age of eighty- 
five. We are told that the story of this mi- 
raculous cure quickly spread. Now, had this 
young Lord North lived in these days, he 
would probably have made his fortune, with 
the assistance of his groom and coachman, by 



122 FLYING VISITS. 

bottling the whole stream up and taking out a 
patent. Indeed, another noble lord on whose 
estate medicinal springs were discovered, seems 
to have had an eye for business, and made the 
most of his discovery. I suppose his heirs are 
still reaping the benefit in ground rents. I 
doubt that now many of the visitors are here 
for the purpose of drinking the waters, nor is 
Tunbridge Wells the elysium for the jeunesse 
doree that it was in those days when gamblers 
played high at " basset," and morris-dancers 
disported themselves on the bowling-green ; 
nor does the modern Beau Nash drive down 
in his sumptuous equipage, with six grays, out- 
riders, footmen, and French horns. Nowadays 
the elite travel down from town within the hour, 
and in the quietest of broughams roll off to 
their country houses, built in the substantial 
style of the Victorian era. I say substantial, 
because in the early days of this watering- 
place, the cabins occupied by the visitors were 
movable, and were carried on sledges from one 
part of the common to the other. These 
sledges would not be of very much use just at 
present ; for at the time I am writing, the 
country round about, owing to the deluge 
during the late tremendous storm, is one vast 



THE HOME OF "YE PANTILES. 



123 



lake, the tops of trees and hedges alone sticking 
up here and there to relieve the monotony of 
this scene of devastation. I noticed several 
carts on which hay had been placed to keep it 
out of the wet, I suppose, before the flood had 
attained its present dimensions, which were 



,V*i. 






•a'*- ( '\- J , /ia r <"*''Z- :y f ■ %& r * 




completely abandoned, and derelict were 
drifting aimlessly about this inland sea. If 
this sort of thing was of frequent occurrence 
in the old days, I hope, for the sake of the 
visitors, that their movable houses took the 
shape of house-boats or bathing machines. 
Johnson, Boswell, Miss Chudleigh, Judge 
Jeffreys, and other wits, notabilities of the 



124 



FLYING VISITS. 



time, may not have been surprised at the sight 
of their fellow-visitors travelling about in their 
movable houses ; but they would be rather 



lllb 



6 W/% ^ 







astonished, I should think, if they saw the 
number of visitors who pour into the town 
during the season from each of the numerous 
trains that have made the Tunbridge Wells 
stations very busy ones indeed. 

Apropos of movable houses, the first thing 
I saw on arriving at Tunbridge Wells was one 
of those travelling dwelling-places on the road 
by the common, one of those that Mr. Smith, 
of Coalville, is always agitating about. But 
if Boswell, Johnson, and their contemporaries 
have long ceased to grace Tunbridge Wells 



THE HOME OF " YE PANTILES.' 



L25 



with their annual presence, the ancient nomen- 
clature is still preserved in the case of " Ye 
Pantiles ; " and as I sat sketching this pictu- 
resque spot from the very coign of vantage that 
so many artists have occupied before me, and 
watching the figures flitting to and fro, the 
men, even the aged ones, garbed in riding 




dress or knickerbocker suits, and the fresh 
young English girls in the graceful dress of 
the present day, it struck me that allowing 
for the romantic picturing of the chronicler, 



i ' , ; ; f ' 1 1 

litlnlHwffl 



■■■. . 







'iRliIW§ill; : 




THE HOME OF "YE PANTILES:' 



127 



there must be very little difference between 
the pretty Pantiles of the past and those of 
the present. As I was making my sketch by 
the well, every now and then a drinker of the 
waters would arrive. There is a room in the 
corner of the Pantiles in which is seated a 
pleasant - faced old lady, who 
presides over the dispensation 
of the medicinal waters ; above 




her on the wall is a large photograph of a very 
ancient lady, who for something like 80 years 
(or was it 180 years ?) dosed the visitors with 
the water from the Chalybeate spring ; among 



128 FLYING VISITS. 

others, her daughter informed me, no less a 
personage than Her Most Gracious Majesty. 
When a customer arrives, this old lady trips 
down a few stone steps, and takes a jug, which 
she proudly shows you is perfectly yellow from 
being continually dipped in the spring, fills a 
glass, and you get this quantum of a very 
pleasant and harmless non-intoxicating bever- 
age for the small sum of one penny. During 
the time I was at the well, I was amused to 
find that three or four visitors were very much 
disappointed because the water wasn't nasty 
enough. I am afraid the good people of 
Tunbridge Wells are too honest. Had I been 
the purveyor of Chalybeate, and heard these 
remarks, I would have immediately paid a visit 
to the nearest chemist's, and have taken care 
that the next inquisitive tourist should not find 
fault with the water upon that score. 

Every town has its " trade mark," so to 
speak, either its Lover's Seat, or bottomless 
well, or haunted oak ; and Tunbridge Wells is 
not behind hand in this respect, for it has its 
Toad Rock, its Parson's Head, and its Loaf 
and Lion Rock. The observant tourist has, 
I doubt not, been often amused at the fanciful 
shapes and faces that rocks assume. A great 



THE HOME OF "YE PANTILES.' 



129 



many are famous for their grotesque but un- 
doubted resemblances to human beings and 
animals, and the rocks at Tunbridee Wells 
are not lacking in this respect. 

I observed a young couple about to meet 
at a rendezvous, 
which I suppose was 
a lover's seat, or 
something of that 
kind, when a dis- 
reputable urchin, a 
young rustic hopeful 
of the neighbor- 
hood, rudely re- 
marked : "Look 
out there, mister, 
feyther's lookin' ! ' 
The seat was nest 



ling 


under 


an 


v er- 


ha 


ne i n or 


roc 


k , and 


lool< 


:ing up 



at this I * 
saw the stern 
parent ; but as 




countenance of the irate 
" love is blind," according 



to the old saying, I suppose the young 



130 



FLYING VISITS. 



couple did not notice it. But the Toad 
Rock is one that each visitor feels him- 
self or herself in duty bound to visit. This 
lapidarian reptile has, we are told, been 
upheaved from the bowels of the earth. 
Perhaps, at some future date, there may be 
another upheaval of the earth at this identical 
fi spot that will 

supply the toad 
with the neces- 
sary impetus he 
has so lonor been 
waiting for, and 
may I be there 
to witness this 
second edition 
-Jfc-Fi of " The Jump- 



ing Frogf." 

But whether it 
be spring, sum- 
mer, autumn, or 
winter, even if 
the visitors are 
the anticipation of seeing 
they will have had the 
satisfaction of a sojourn in one of the 
most healthy, bracing, fashionable, and 




disappointed in 
the toad jump, 



THE HOME OF " YE PANTILES:' 131 

picturesque of health resorts to be found 
anywhere. And the only place within reason- 
able distance of London combining all these 
desirable qualifications is undoubtedly Tun- 
bridge Wells. 




Tunbridge Wells. 



My dear M., 

Since writing you last I have been to 
Brighton to give two performances. Yon will see 
zvJiat sort of weather we had from my sketch of 
" Breezy Brigliton " in " Punch" We were fortu- 
nately in the good " Old Ship" which weathered the 
storm capitally, and was splendidly provisioned. We 
found plenty of amusement in looking out of the port- 
holes and watching the people braving the elements, 
and trying to tack round the corner of the street 
against the gale ; and whenever I sazv an old gentle- 
man bring up suddenly against a lamp-post, or take a 
header into the arms of a fisherman, or grind his 
nose against the curbstone, I fervently hoped he was 
one of the directors of the Dome, as they refuse to 
allozu any oxy-hydrogen light in the interior of this 



FLYING VISITS. 133 

ancient edifice, so I couldnt give my entertainment 
there. Gas as much as you like, in tzvo senses, but no 
limelight. 

I can quite believe that in the old days — say when 
the Dome was built, and zvhen, figuratively speaking, 
they used magic lanterns made out of old kettles, sup- 
plied from gas in tissue-paper bags — tJiere zvas some 
fear of an accident which might suddenly elevate the 
building ; but you might just as well compare the old- 
fashioned lanterns and gas bags with the elaborate 
apparatus and strong gas cylinders in use nowadays, 
as drazv a line between the cockleshells of penny steam- 
boats on the Thames and the pick of the Transatlantic 
liners — say the "Teutonic" or the "Majestic" — or an 
old-fashioned boarding establishment zvitli the magnif- 
icent Hotel Metropole at Brighton. This princely 
hotel has a fine hall attached to it, and as, notwith- 
standing their splendid surroundings, the management 
are not afraid of the limelight, it zvas in this hall I 
made my two appearances. 

I think I noticed one of the directors of the Dome 
sitting in the front rozv, and I zvas half inclined to 
make a departure from my usual remarks, and intro- 
duce the Lord High Executioner s solig from " The 
Mikado " — "Pve got him on my list " — and, as Mr. 
Gilbert suggests, L would " make the punishment fit 



134 



FLYING VISITS. 



the crime" and compel this director to act as the 
weight on one of the old-fashioned gas bags with a 
slow fuse attached to the mouth — the bags mouth, not 
the director s. It is hardly necessary for me to say 
that this proposition emanated from the Professor ; 
but, seriously speaking, I think it is rather ridiculous 
% s that an enter- 

tainment like 
mine should be 
N prohibited in 
* this more suit- 
able building. I 
feel very much 
like blowing up 
the committee, but this would in no way endanger the 
safety of the building. . . . 

. . / had two splendid audiences, as the report- 
ers would say, carriages formed a line from the doors 
right down to the Pier. I really ought to have given 
the shozv on stilts, as the platform was only about a 
foot high, so I don't think the people at tJie back could 
see much more than the top of my head. Nozu here I 
have a platform about the size of the floor of the 
House of Commons, and I must admit that the aspect 
of the hall in the evening reminded me very forcibly 
of the House itself during the dinner hour. . . . 




FLYING VISITS. 1 35 

The weather here is also bad. There was a little 
sunshine this morning, and I took advantage of it to get 
some sketches about the place. On my way out to the 
Toad Rock I sazv some incidents worth recording, but 
to my horror I found that I had come out without a 
pencil! I was a good way from the town, and the 
twigs on the trees were too damp to make charcoal of 
even if I wasted a box of matches, so I zvas just on 
the point of giving up my journey, when a small boy 
hove in sight. I was prepared to give this urchin un- 
told gold for a bit of pencil, so I interrogated him on 
the subject. At first he shook his head; then he felt 
in all his pockets. No result. Finally he made a 
plunge into some mysterious aperture in the lining of 
his coat, and I anxiously watched his hand gradually 
travelling round in the direction of the opposite side 
of his garment. Then he seized a corner of the lin- 
ing, and a smile broke over his face. It was terribly 
exciting. The smile developed into a grin : 
I zvas saved! " Wait a minute, sir ; Fve 
got it ! " and after sundry and manifold 
grabs and jerks, he fished out an infinites- 
imal stump of a lead pencil with about as 
much exertion and apparent science as a dentist would 
use in extracting a tooth. I threw him my purse (I 
believe that is the correct way of rewarding anyone 




136 



FLYING VISITS. 



who has done you a service), and walked off tri- 
umphantly with my treasure, a facsimile of which I 
here present you with. . . . 

We had not seen the Professor all day ; but coming 
back from our zualk we observed a dark form emerge 
stealtliily out of a railway tunnel. Sure enough it 
was the. Professor, and his white 
face looked ghastlier than ever 
against the gloom inside. He 
looked very surprised when I 
asked him what he was trespass- 
ing on the railway for. " Don't 
you knoiv Vm a member of the 
Corpsological Research Associa- 
tion ? There zvas a man throivn 
out of a raihvay-carriage window 
in this tunnel on December the 
18th, 186 ^. The train he was 
throivn from was the 3.55 from 
London, and, strange to say, his 
body has never been discovered. 
It is not the first afternoon I have spent here, risking 
my life among the passing trains ; and to-day I have 
used up twenty boxes of matches in my endeavor to 
throw some light upon this dark subject, but this is 
the only clue I have discovered Up to now" He opened 




FLYING VISITS. 1 37 

his not e-book, and showed ns between two pages a hu- 
man hair, which he had found sticking to the zvall of 
the tunnel, and upon which he now reverently gazed, 
conjuring up in his own mind the awful tragedy to 
which this single hair bore mute testimony. We sub- 
sequently discovered from the station-master that this 
tunnel had only been built ten years ; but to this day 
zve have never had the heart to tell the Professor so, 
and the hair still remains among his most treasured 
relics. . . . 

Yours, &c, 




THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 



A Big Exhibition; Side Shows extra — "Tolls, please!" — 
Playing at Trains — Coach Touts — The Side Shows — 
Pretty Totland Bay — A Dangerous Foundation — The 
Flowers in the Garden. 



HE Isle of Wight re- 
joices in the title of the 
" Garden of England," 
but it has always struck me 
as being more of a winter 
Garden or a Summer 
Garden— a garden in the 
sense of a show place, an 
exhibition with a lot of side 
show attractions, for which 
you are charged extra. Cross- 
ing via Southampton, the 
mulcting process begins the 
moment you sight the Isle of 
Wight steamer. You have no 
sooner paid for and received your ticket than 
you have to pay toll for the privilege of using 
it, besides each separate item in your luggage 




THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 1 39 

being' charged for. Landing at Ryde Pier, 
you pass a barrier where you must deliver up 
your ticket ; two yards farther on you are 
stopped at a turnstile, the custodian of which 
demands twopence toll for landing. I suppose 
that if by this time your means were exhausted, 




your person would be impounded between 
these two toll gates until you were rescued 
and bailed out by some chance friend or good 
Samaritan passing by. Your luggage, for 
which you have already paid before com- 
mencing your voyage, is seized by the pier 
officials, weighed with the accuracy of the 
money scales in the Bank of England, and 



HO FLYING VISITS. 

you are charged nearly the value of your 
baggage for the privilege of taking it on to 
the Island with you. Then you have either 
the choice of walking the planks of the pier 
to reach the shore, or still further attenuating 
your purse by using the Electric Railway. If 
you do not happen to be stopping at Ryde, 
but are going on to some other part of the 
island, you are at the mercy of one, if not all, 
of the three pettifogging little railway com- 
panies that work and prosper upon the few 
square miles which constitute this pretty little 
isle. 

I have visited the Isle of Wight now pretty 
regularly for some years, but I have never yet 
been able to fathom the depths of mystery 
which encompass the workings of the afore- 
said diminutive railways. They have always 
got little surprises in store for the unsuspecting 
traveller. Being a golfer, I take a ticket from 
Ryde to Bembridge, a distance of about five 
miles. For this I pay something less than five 
pounds ; but I am informed by a resident 
who, having nothing else to do, after many 
years of sojourn in the island, ultimately un- 
ravelled a good deal of the profound and 
mystical intricacies of the railway systems, 



THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 141 

that if I booked from the next station, close 
to, a first-class return to Bembridge would 
cost me about threepence. I won't vouch for 
the absolute accuracy of these figures, but 
they will give you some idea of the eccen- 
tricity which prevails on these miniature iron- 
roads. Of one thine I am certain, and that 
is, that these three companies, who have the 
poor tourist at their mercy, are determined to 
spite each other as much as possible, and this 
they do at the expense and annoyance of the 
traveller, as part of their game at railways is 
to take special care that their trains shall not 
form connections at the junctions with the 
trains of the other lines ; and the isle will 
never be patronized as it ought to be while 
this state of affairs exists. Of course, this is 
notorious ; and the first-class tourist is well 
aware that a visit to the Isle of Wight is an 
expensive undertaking. But it is hard for his 
less affluent brethren to be tempted to cross 
over by boat for a little over a shilling return 
fare, and be charged, in addition, a penny for 
leaving the mainland, twopence for landing 
on the island, and the same on their return 
journey — in all an extra sixpence is a con- 
sideration for a working man. Had I space 



142 



FLYING VISITS. 



I could dilate still further upon the absurd 
railway systems of the island, but it is only 
W. S. Gilbert who can do justice to the 
topsy-turvydom of the railway eccentricity 
experienced by all who visit England's gar- 
den. 

You may notice on crossing from Souihsea 
to Ryde certain individuals in horsey costumes 
on the steamers. These are touts for the 

coaches that ply on 
the island (which no 
doubt offer the best 
means for sight- 
seeing), resembling 
the side-show men 
at exhibitions calling 
out : " This way for 
the Vanishing Lady !" 
" Step up here, and 
see the Performing 
Fleas ! " &c, or the 
^ *^^ touts outside cheap 

photographers. They are not allowed to ply 
their calling on the aristocratic soil of the 
island, or on the steamers, so they must cross 
over to the other side of the water, where they 
dispose of the coach tickets to the excur- 




THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 143 

sionists. Judging from the appearance of 
the last coach I saw this season, I do not 
think these solicitations can have had much 
effect. 

Now what has this Garden of England, as 




an exhibition, to attract the tourist besides 
the beauties that Dame Nature has bestowed 
on it with such a lavish hand ? Carisbrooke 
Castle, with its donkey doing penance on a 
treadmill to bring up to the surface again the 
candle the attendant lowers into the well ; a 
Roman villa, a Poet Laureate, an Attorney- 
General, and last, but not least, a Royal 
residence. 



144 



FLYING VISITS. 



As far as sightseeing is concerned, Ryde 
is undoubtedly the best place to make your 
headquarters ; but to see the beautiful island 
at its very best, you must wander over the 




m fjL 

IT' !^~ 



cliffs by the Needles, where the air is most 
invigorating and the scenery most romantic, 
and you can get a bird's-eye view of pretty 
Totland Bay, a charming little spot, which is, 
to my mind, the beau-ideal of a quiet watering- 
place. It is only to be known to be spoilt, so 
I will not expose the secrets of its charms, 



THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 145 



c^TJ 









but selfishly, perhaps, keep them locked in 
my own bosom. I do not wonder that Lord 
Tennyson was roused against the railways 
marring the 
peaceful rural 
solitude and 
beauty of this 
quiet spot with 
their noise and 
smoke and rattle 
and bustle. 
Quiet Totland 
Bay certainly is, 
as far as the 
ordinary visitor 
is concerned; 
but this particu- 
larly peaceful 
place is a literal 
hot-bed of all 
the secret 
modern appli- 
ances for offence and defence, and if the 
numerous electric wires which form a perfect 
unseen network all over the place, and are 
attached to the guns and concealed explosives, 
happened to get entangled, Totland Bay and 




146 



FLYING VISITS. 




Shanklin, the 
Ultima Thule 
of the tennis- 
player; San- 
down, the happy 
hunting- ground 
of the burnt-cork 
minstrel — each 
bed, in fact, in 



the Needles might 
be suddenly and 
expeditiously trans- 
ported to Bourne- 
mouth. 

Cowes, the haven 
of the yachtsman ; 
Ventnor, the resort 
of the invalid; 
Bembridge, the 
golfer's Paradise ; 







THE SHOW GARDEN OF ENGLAND. 1 47 

this model garden has its own peculiar and 
distinctive flower, some of which I endeavor 
to depict by means of the budding maidens 




in my sketches ; but in Ryde the assortment 
is more varied, although the species most 
prevalent are the nattta aristocraticus and the 
toutes vulgaris. 






So utJ isc a. 



My dear M. } 

Leaving- Tun bridge Wells, I had to make a 
cross-country journey — cross in two senses of the word ; 
for we had to change five times, which would perhaps 
have been acceptable as giving a little diversity to the 
monotony of travelling had I not, when on the point of 
starting, received a telegram from my editor, telling 
me to do a page drawing apropos of Lord Randolph 
Churchill's terrible adventure with the seven lions in 
South Africa, which to be in press in time for the 
next issue would have to be in London that night. I 
have a portable studio, about 3 feet by \\ feet, which 
contains all my drawing materials, and when open 
forms a desk, so that L can get to work the moment L 
arrive at a hotel ; but I did not bargain for having 



FLYING VISITS. 149 

to draw in the train, particularly when having to 
change continually, however, I managed to do it by 
putting in the faces when we stopped at a station and 
the rest of the work as we rattled along. The only 
part of it which came really easy to me was my de- 
lineation of Lord Randolph and the lions trembling 
with terror, zvhen I simply laid my pen on the draw- 
ing and the jerking of the train over the points made 
the points of the drawing. It was tiring zvork, and 
I zv as only kept azvake by my drawing pen being vio- 
lently jerked into my hand at frequent intervals ; and 
yet art critics, who little know the difficulties which 
we artists of the Press have sometimes to labor under, 
criticise work done under these sort of circumstances 
just the same as if it were done in peace and quiet 
and the comfort of a sumptuous studio, although the 
flattering remarks which I have just read about this 
sketch of mine show me that it evidently didnt suffer 
much from the peculiar circumstances under which it 
was done. I began the drawing at Tunbridge Wells 
at about 10. SO a.m., and it was on its way quite fin- 
ished to town at Jf.30 from Southampton. I know this 
will interest you, altJwugJi I shouldn't like the public 
to know it ; but all the time I have been on tour I have 
never allowed anything to interfere with my keeping 
pace with my Press work. . . . 



i5o 



FLYING VISITS. 



. . . / gave a performance in Southampton, and 
then crossed next morning to the Isle of Wight, after 
being mulcted heavily for ourselves and our baggage. 
Our voyage was uneventful, except that we passed two 
sharks, which, from the price of living in " The Gar- 
den of England" we put down to be a couple of the 

hotel proprietors out for 
a bathe. I suppose you 
have seen my sketch in 
" Punch " of the Isle of 
Wight, which I did 
from the window of the hotel I was stopping at in 
Ryde, and which sadly agitated 
such high dignitaries in the 
kingdom as the Mayor and 
Corporation of Ryde. On the 
day of publication the Mayor 
was so very much overcome that 





FLYING VISITS. 151 

a new Mayor had to be elected on the spot, and the 
Aldermen and Town Councillors were with difficulty 
brought round by the aid of smelling salts and electric 
shocks, the latter being administered gratuitously by 
the electric railway on the Pier. The anathemas 
heaped upon my unfortunate head zvere as extensive 
and comprehensive as those showered upon the Jack- 
daw of Rheims ; but after a serious and stormy dis- 
cus siofi the authorities decided to drop the subject, 
as the report says they did not wish to advertise 
" Punch.'" Poor " Punch " / The veteran who has 
just celebrated his jubilee will hide Ids diminished 
head, and strike from the roll the name of the mis- 
creant who had the audacity to warn the public at the 
expense of the Mayor and Corporation of the town of 
Rydel . . . 

. . . Coming across, the Professor was buried 
in a book (not in a sewn-up sail, as they usually 
are at sea). It was Rudyard Kipling s latest — 
" The Best Story in the World?" He was gloating 
over the narration of the galley-slave' s sufferings, 
and was particularly delighted by the author's vivid 
description of their being cut up into little bits and 
poked through the holes in the side of the vessel 
made for the oars to go through. Although the Solent 
was hardly the place to inspire one, as the author 



152 FLYING VISITS. 

of " The Best Story in the World''' had been in- 
spired, the Professor was quite carried away by the 
revolting details, and it zvas wortJi a lot to see the look 
of disgust zvJiicJi passed over Ids features what he was 
brought back to everyday life by the demand for tolls 
with whicJi we were pestered immediately zve landed 
on the island. . . . 

Yours, &c, 




EASTBOURNE AFTER THE 
SEASON. 



Good-by to the Holiday Makers — Splash Point — How the 
Visitor Spends the Day — His Friend, the Waiter — The 
Daily Papers — The Pavilion — The Manager's Enterprise 
— Ladies on the Links — The Curse of Eastbourne — A 
Fugitive. 

Unfortunately I found myself at East- 
bourne just as the season was over. The 
grass on the tennis-lawns was an inch long, 
and in place of the pretty faces that erstwhile 
attracted the masculine gaze toward the 
boarding-house windows, the observant visitor 
might have noted sundry elderly visages peep- 
ing out gloomily from behind the numerous 
notices : " Apartments to Let." The itinerant 
musician from Italy's sunny shores, the cheap- 
jack of the sands, and the irrepressible niggers 
had fled, like the swallows, to other climes. 
The boats which, freighted with flannel-clad 
youths and their inamorate, had flitted hither 
and thither upon the placid surface of the sea 
under the hot suns of July and August, were 
now keel upward, snugly tucked in under the 
parade, in close proximity to the regiment of 



154 FLYING VISITS. 

bathing machines, which, pulled up side by 
side, " were left till called for " next season, and 
probably the bathing- - machine horse, as a 
pleasant variation from his irksome summer 
labor, was now let out to follow the harriers 
across country at half-a-crown an hour. Not 
that Eastbourne was completely empty, but 
the holiday-makers had departed, although a 
considerable number of health-seekers still 
remained ; and when the sun shone for an 
hour or so in the afternoon, the visitors, like 
the buds it had caressed into blossoms in the 
springtime, came out under the benign in- 
fluence, and for a time the parade looked quite 
lively. In the absence of the usual summer 
beach attractions, Nature catered for the 
amusement of the visitors, who seemed to 
take a lively interest in watching the waves 
which one after another, under the influence 
of a strong southeasterly gale, were dashing 
over " Splash Point," an enjoyment which 
seems particularly dear to the English heart. 

The daily programme of the visitor in a 
seaside resort like this, late in the autumn, is 
something like the following : — Have breakfast 
an hour later than usual. Probably, at this 
period of the year, you have the coffee-room 



EASTBOURNE AFTER THE SEASON 155 

waiters in your hotel all to yourself, so an hour 
can be taken up in discussing the visitors they 
have during the season, or what is probably 
more interesting, the few that remain. You 
hear all about the old lady on the second floor, 




who sees nobody, eats nothing, drinks nothing, 
and never goes out, and, as the waiter expresses 
it, she " pays through the nose " for everything ; 
though as she eats nothing and drinks nothing, 
it is a mystery to me why she is subjected to 
this nasal-organ system of payment. Then 
there is the eccentric old gentleman in number 



156 FLYING VISITS. 

49, " something in the City," who has come 
down to lay in a good stock of ozone wherewith 
to combat the fog-fiend, but who nevertheless 
spends all his time in the railway station, 
watching the trains coming and o-oing, until the 
time comes for him to take a first single for 
London Bridge. Having exhausted the brief 
list of visitors, the all-absorbing topic of the 
Salvation Army is brought on the tapis, and after 
you have fully discussed the pros and cons of 
the case with your friend the waiter, you walk 
up to the station to buy the London papers. 
Having pocketed these, you go to the Reading- 
room and peruse the very same papers which 
are lying on the table there. This business 
over, a stroll along the front as far as the Wish 
Tower in search of an appetite, and back to 
your hotel for lunch. This meal disposed of, 
another peregrination to the Wish Tower to 
aid digestion, and then off to the station to see 
if the London evening papers have arrived. 
They have, and have been sent to the Reading- 
room ; so once more you bend your steps in 
this direction, and peruse the news of the day. 
By this time the approach of darkness intimates 
that dinner-time is not far off, and soon you 
are seated at the corner table in the large, 



i 5 8 



FLYING VISITS. 



dim, empty coffee-room, deserted by all save 
the faithful waiter, who, having nothing else to 
do, has also read the evening papers from be- 
ginning to end, advertisements and all, and is 
ready to enter into discussion with you upon 
the various items of interest contained therein. 
Dinner and debate over, our visitor would find 
time hang very heavily on his hands but for 
the amusements provided by the management 
of Devonshire Park Pavilion, and the two 
hours he can put in there will be the liveliest 
of the day. Then comes the last item on the 
programme, bed. This dose to be repeated 
daily. 

I happened to look in at the Pavilion just 
as the courteous manager, 
Mr. Stan den Triers, had 
returned from London, 
his countenance wreathed 
with smiles, the cause of 
which I was soon to learn. 
"Next time you 
come to Eastbourne, Mr 
Furniss, you will see L 
wonderful addition to the Park, for I've just 
bought the P. and O. Pavilion at the Naval 
Exhibition/' 




EASTBOURNE AFTER THE SEASON. 159 

"Good Heavens!" I said, "are you pro- 
moting a scheme for enlarging the pier, and 
are the P. and O. Steamers to come and go 
to and from the new Eastbourne Docks ? " 

He had no time to reply, for he was off 
again, this time, perhaps, to purchase the 




Alexandra Palace for transportation to East- 
bourne, wherein to hold an exhibition of white 
elephants, or to make a bid for the tower which 
is to out-Eiffel Eiffel, at the World's Fair at 
Chicago. Should the visitor, however, be of 
an athletic turn of mind, or rather of body, he 
can skate on the rink under the Pavilion in the 



i6o 



FLYING VISITS. 



morning or afternoon to the lively strains of an 
excellent band, and afterward have a refresh- 
ing swim in the spacious baths across the 
road ; or if a golfer, he can display his skill in 
the august presence of the most genial of 
champions and first-class exponent of the 
game, Mr. Horace Hutchinson, who kindly 
pioneered me over the links. When he saw 
me at my worst I excused myself on the ground 
that I could not keep my 
eye on the ball in the 
presence of such a redoubt- 
able personage in the world 
of golf; but the fact is, my 
erring optic was continually 
wandering to the links re- 
served for golfers of the 
gentler sex, whose cos- 
tume, I may inform the fair 
athletes, is anything but 
attractive. Probably, in the 
natural order of things, 
being at the seaside they 
designed a club-costume in 
keeping with the place, 
which strongly resembles a bathing - dress. 
I may frankly say that ladies do not look 




EASTBOURNE AFTER THE SEASON. l6l 

their best on golf-links, and if the neces- 
sary attitudes do not allow of a very great 
display of grace, the least they can do is to 
counterbalance this by the charm of their 
attire. I would suggest, with all due defer- 
ence to feminine taste and fashions, that a 
smart red jacket, a coquettish hat, and a dress 
with some pretence to shape, would render the 
presence of the ladies indispensable as orna- 
ments to the links. 

In the summertime tennis is a great feature 
of Eastbourne, and the tournament in Devon- 
shire Park is one of the prettiest sights of 
athletic England. But it is not for tennis, or 
golf, or any of the usual seaside attractions 
that Eastbourne is becoming notorious. Every 
topic of conversation pales before that of the 
Salvation Army. 

The Wish Tower is a turf-crowned eminence 
at the west end of the Parade. The chosen 
resort of loving couples, it is the scene of the 
mildest of flirtations. Nurses with their peram- 
bulators wheel their charges up and down the 
gravelled walk, and little children who have 
passed the perambulator period of their exist- 
ence play merrily about upon the grass. It is 
a perfect picture of peace ; but the rolling of 



1 62 



FLYING VISITS. 



the drum is heard in the distance, and the air is 
rent by the discordant notes of brass instru- 
ments and the jingle of tambourines, and 
presently a motley crew approaches. The 
white-faced, vacant-eyed, open-mouthed, un- 
educated religionist is followed by the feeble, 

totterino- imbecile, the 



professional howlers of 
the gutter, and a de- 
tachment of half- 
amused, half-sneering 
camp-followers. This 
is modern religion! 
They take possession 
of the peaceful stretch 
of sward, the children 
cease their games and 
vanish terror-stricken, 
the poor invalids ner- 
vously make their way 
indoors, and those who 
are too ill to leave the 
house writhe in agony in their chamber, 
their nerves unstrung by the ear - splitting 
din, and they are unable to get the rest 
their state demands. This is the Salvation 
Army, always the same, whether in the 




EASTBOURNE AFTER THE SEASON. 1 63 

quiet London suburbs, the pretty inland 
villages or the peaceful seaside ; but at East- 
bourne we have not only a contrast to the 
picture of peace, we have a veritable war. 
When I was there the inhabitants had one of 
their most sanguinary battles with " the Army ; " 
the Citadel was stormed, the windows smashed, 
and the riotous scenes that took place, already 
graphically described in the papers, were a 
disgrace to civilization. These professional 
religionists had brought this upon their own 
heads by declaring their intention of importing- 
" converted " pugilists, who, with " Salvation " 
across their chests and silver in their pockets, 
were to give the townspeople " wot for " for 
daring to protest against their town being 
made obnoxious to themselves and to their 
visitors, with the evident result of driving away 
the latter from one of the most delightful 
health resorts that grace our Southern shore. 
Will cant and Barnumism win the day, 
and will Eastbourne be forced to sink all its 
interests and bow the knee to the " General " ? 
Perhaps, then, the motley band will parade the 
pier, or, happy thought, even surround it in 
open boats. Willingly would most of the in- 
habitants of Eastbourne provide the craft, if 



1 64 



FLYING VISITS. 



there was any prospect of a good strong breeze 
rising which would carry the boats with their 
crews far from their shores. At present the 
pier is a safe retreat, and 1 was rather amused 
to watch one visitor who had fled from the 
turmoil, and sat, enveloped in his ulster, at the 
end farthest from the shore. I dare say he 
was pitying others less fortunate than himself, 
who thus late in the season had come down to 
the Sussex coast for peace and quietude, and 
instead found themselves in the midst of a 
modern edition of Dante's Inferno. 








Eastbourne. 



My dear M., 

I am too unnerved to write you h long letter 
after witnessing Bedlam let loose, which just about 
describes the Salvation Army disturbances here. I 
can hardly join the Skeleton Army, as my figure is as 
iinsuited for that as it is for the Life Guards ; but I 
must say that I feel strongly for the poor policeman, 
whose " life is not a happy one" and who gets knocked 
about here during these riots for the benefit of the 
British Barnum. 

Yours, etc., 




PINES AND PARSONS. 



Why not Bradlaughmouth ? — Retired Warriors — The Bed- 
room Brigade — A more apropos Statue — Church, Ser- 
mons, and Curates — The Sanctity of the Winter Garden 
Destroyed — A Sumptuous Hotel — The Valley of the 
Bourne — An Awe-inspiring Fountain — The Invalids' 
Walk— Sir William. 

Bradlaugh and Bournemouth have not been 
very closely associated, yet unconsciously 
the people of Bournemouth, who are Churchy 
in the strict sense of the word, have the statue 
in their midst which I show in my sketch, 
although they themselves are apparently un- 
aware of the fact. In the very centre of the 
town is a museum or art-gallery, or something 
of that kind, in the garden attached to which 
stands this statue, and it is probably the 
untutored hand of the grand old sculptor, 
Father Time, that has converted the features 
of Wellington or Napier into those of the more 
latter-day celebrity. Bournemouth is a new 
place, and this work of art, to judge from the 
marks of time upon it, was probably placed 
there long before the hotels were built, the 
pier thought of, or the health-restoring prop- 



PINES AND PARSONS. 



167 



erties of the place discovered. Why was it 
not then rechristened Bradlaughmouth ? 

It is very strange that 
retired military men, whose 
vocation in the earlier 
portion of life was that of 
killing their fellow-creatures, 
should find it difficult, 
when they have doffed 
the red coat and 
donned mufti, to kill 
time. You generally 
find them moping 
about in Cathedral 
cities, sampling the 
vegetables in the green- 
grocer's shop, bargain- 
ing with the butcher, 
or carrying home The 
Times, which they have 
obtained on the hire 
system at the rate of 
one penny per hour. 
These remarks apply^^-J 
to the un - invalided portion of the 
whilom defenders of our country ; the 
less robust you will usually find at watering- 




1 68 FLYING VISITS. 

places such as Bournemouth. It is odd 
that men who have seen so much of the 
world in former days should be content 
to vegetate as they do in after life. Perhaps 
their minds become narrowed with their 
incomes, and they go to the other extreme ; 
perhaps, also, this is exemplified at no 
place more than at Bournemouth. One day 
I was asked by the doctor attending my 
wife if I would like the " Bedroom Brigade " 
to visit her. I at first thought that this was a 
body of prettily-uniformed trained nurses, but 
to my surprise I was informed that the Bed- 
room Brigade of Bournemouth was a number 
of retired military men who went from house 
to house to sing hymns at the bedsides of 
invalids. What I said on hearine this I will 
not repeat, but I hinted that I might welcome 
them with my riding-whip in one hand and 
the garden-hose in the other. The Brigade 
did not storm the castle I tenanted for the 
winter. 

One of the features of Bournemouth is that 
the tide never ebbs or flows. This we are 
told ; but I only know that when I have ridden 
any distance along the sands, I have had to 
return pretty sharply by the way I came, or 



PINES AND PARSONS. 



169 



via the cliffs, to avoid the incoming Waters. 
But if the sea does not ebb or flow to any 
great extent, there is a perpetual flood-tide of 
humanity at the railway station, which is in- 
creasing year by year. The railway has done 
more to make Bournemouth than any enter- 
prise on the part of the powers that be, and I 
would recommend that the inhabitants should 
remove the statue of Bradlaugh — much as the 
memory of that excellent man deserves to be 
perpetuated, even at Bournemouth — and put 
up in place of it a statue of the Chairman of 
the London and South- 
Western Railway, or the 
energetic manager, Mr. 
Charles Scotter, who has 
done so much to make 
Bournemouth what it is. , 
The people of Bourne- wLl \ 
mouth may be classed WV 
under two heads — doctors 
and patients ; of course, 
I am writing of Bournemouth as a wintering- 
place, as it lays claim to be. Not being 
myself an invalid, but, fortunately, rather 
of a robust nature, I felt somewhat of an 
intruder when I wintered there. The great 




I70 FLYING VISITS. 

fault of Bournemouth is that there is no 
place to go to but church, and nothing to 
discuss but sermons, or the charms of the latest 
curate. An antidote has been suggested 
in the shape of a Winter Garden, in the centre 
of the town, in which to bold concerts, &c, 
but my experience of Bournemouth has been 
that if anything of the sort were provided, the 
management would have to provide the audi- 
ences as well. If it comes to that, perhaps 
Tussaud will do so. There is a charming 
Winter Garden at Bournemouth, but, alas ! a 
very good and respectable circus performed 
there once ; religious hands were held up in 
horror, eyes were uplifted, the sanctity of the 
place was destroyed, the Garden has been left 
to rack and ruin. I am rather surprised that 
the banner of the Salvation Army does not 
already float from the top. 

There is no doubt about it that Bourne- 
mouth is extremely prettily situated, and 
perhaps I may be excused if my description of 
its natural charms savors somewhat of the 
familiar phraseology of the guide book. As 
the visitor passes that beautiful little spot 
Christchurch, en route to Bournemouth, he 
lets the carriage window down so as to inhale 



PINES AND PARSONS. 171 

the fragrant odor of the pine-trees, at the 
risk of getting a cinder in his eye from the 
engine, a sniff of the stoker's oil-rag, or the 
spicy zephyrs from the Bournemouth gas- 
works. Arriving at his destination, he is 
politely escorted to the 'bus of the Bath Hotel, 
and he soon finds himself in a veritable home 
of luxury and a temple of Art. As he walks 
through this museum of treasures he halts on 
his way to his rooms, to renew acquaintance 
with some celebrated Academy picture by a 
modern master, whose work now hangs on the 
walls of the hotel. In his rooms he finds art 
treasures rich and rare around him, which are 
soon described to him by his host, who is well' 
known as a traveller, and is not the least 
ornamental member of the Geographical 
Society!" He must not leave this princely 
hotel without paying a visit to its Japanese 
museum, stocked with the rarest of treasures, 
which Mr. Russell Cotes has collected and 
brought home with him. 

Passing through the spacious gardens, the 
visitor finds himself on the East Cliff, with 
the charming valley of the Bourne lying 
stretched out at his feet. In parenthesis, I 
may remark that this is suggestive of the 



172 



FLYING VISITS. 



chestnut that the " valet lay smiling before 
him," for how a valley lies stretched at your 
feet is a mystery wrapped in the imagination 
of authors of ooiide books. 

The valley is studded with houses of 




*<*&> 



singular artistic beauty, 'nestling as it were 
among the foliage of -the health-restorative 
fir-trees, and the silvery Bourne, softly mur- 
muring in its pebbly bed as it meanders on its 
seaward course, whispers a gentle protest to 
the stones which bar its progress with their up- 
raised head. Be it recorded, this gentlest and 
most refined of rivers is swept out regularly 



JUNES AND PARSONS. 



173 



every morning with brooms, as carefully as the 
rooms in the houses which are clotted alone on 
either side of it. The strains of music lure 
you to the centre of the town, and here you 
can spend, many an hour in admiring the 
beauties of the well-stocked and handsomely- 
appointed establishments, and some days in 
regretting that Shoolbred or Whiteley have 
not established his business and his charges 
in Bournemouth. Perhaps you may be a bit 
ruffled in spirit after looking at your butcher's 
or fishmonger's bill, so it is not only artistic 
but diplomatic of the tradespeople to supply 
gratuitous music to soothe their customers. 
Walking through Dean Park, which is like a 
corner of Hampstead Heath, you leave the 
cemetery upon your right and strike into 




174 



FLYING VISITS. 



the woods. Should you do so from the 
East side on horseback, as I have frequently 
done, you may find that you can halloo till you 
are hoarse, but you can't get out of the wood, 
for the proprietor, who is kind enough to open 
the gate at one end, closes the gate at the other ; 
and if the lodge-keeper happens to have gone 
shopping, or is having a siesta, you may find 
yourself an hour or more late for dinner. But 
then what more can you or your horse want to 
sustain animation than the life-giving odor of 
the pines ? Bournemouth must not be offended 




PINES AND PARSONS. 



175 




if it is termed a mushroom town, as it is only 
sixty years old, and is still growing. And it 
must not kill the goose that lays the golden 
eggs ; in other words, it must not fell the trees 
that bring the invalids' money into the town, 
and it will take some time yet for the visitors 
to discover that they can buy pine-oil in Ox- 
ford Street, which, rubbed on their railings and 
doorposts, would benefit them just the same. 
Bournemouth is not altogether artificial. By 
nature it is prettily situated, and according to 
medical dicta is a heaven-sent haven for the 
invalid. But Nature has been aided by Art. 
Could anything be more beautiful, more artistic, 
more awe-inspiring than this fountain in the 
public gardens, which I have sketched on the 



176 



FLYING VISITS. 



spot ? But the name of the place in Bourne- 
mouth is not altogether a misnomer. I refer 
to the " Invalids' Walk," 
where the invalid is 
san d w i c h e d 



between the 
robust, and 
where the 
beauty, wealth 
and fashion 
most do con- 



gregate. 
Most 




uide-book authors would probably 






conclude with a list 
o f distinguished 
visitors who do 
frequent, or have 
frequented, the 
place. T hey 
would doubt- 
less tell you that 
Sir William 
\ Harcourt 
- *""" comes 
£7" from his 
Forest and sits 
beamine under the Bournemouth firs ; and 




country seat in the New 



SM^^s 




178 FLYING VISITS. 

doubtless they would tell you that Lord Port- 
arlington, the resident notability, is the moving 
spirit of the place. This is true. 

Doubtless they will also tell you something 
about Bournemouth eulogistic of its moderate 
charges, its many amusements and attractions, 
and of its continual round of pleasure and 
gayety. This is not true. 




Bournemouth. 

My dear M., 

Arrived in bronchial Bournemouth this 
afternoon. Rain coming down in torrents, so it is quite 
appropriate that we should go to the Royal Bath 
Hotel. It is kept by a genial Scotchman, not of the 
name of Mackintosh, but Mr. Russell Cotes, F.R.G.S. 
and C.B. (Commander of the Bath, of course !). 
This princely hotel is not only gorgeous but comfort- 
able, and Lika Joko felt at home at once among the 
curiosities in the Japanese Museum; but you zvill 
see what I say about it in my article in " Black and 
Whiter . . . 

. . . There was a theatre here once, but the 
Bournemouth visitors would not enter one, so they did 
away with the boxes and galleries, and now the build- 
ing is known as the Town Hall. My experience of 
Town Halls is that they are almost invariably dreary 



ISO FLYING VISITS. 

and draughty. I could do nothing with my audience ; 
in fact, the matinee I gave here this afternoon is the 
only occasion I have made my appearance on the plat- 
form amidst dead silence, or, to put it in theatrical 
phraseology, " zvitJwut a hand?' Not a smile or a 
laugh could I extract, and I felt that although I had 
been a success everywhere else, it was impossible to be 
humorous in such a place and with such an audience. 
I ivastold beforeliand not to expect much, as my audi- 
ence could not laugh, only having one lung between 
three of tJicm ; but surely there would have been no 
danger in indulging in a smile noiv and tJien, and 
when I zvaxed eloquent, in giving me a hand. No, 
they were as cold and chilly as the weather itself ; 
and I zvas beginning to feel that I must sit down my- 
self and turn the whole proceedings into a Quakers' 1 
meeting, when a telegram was handed to me from the 
wings. It came from Mr. John Aird, who knew I 
was at Bournemouth that day, and was sent from the 
House of Commons to tell me the sad news of the 
death of the First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. IV. H. 
Smith. I came forward, and, as the papers said, 
" in a fczv touching and eloquent words " broke the 
sad tidings to my audience. I flatter myself that 
not one of the countless ministers who pervade Bourne- 
mouth could have done it more sincerely or more 



FLYING VISITS. 



181 



touchingly, and when I eulogized the late Le eider and 
gave a short peroration instead of my usual humor- 
ous remarks about htm, the audience zvoke up and be- 
came quite enthusiastic. It was 
the style of thing they were 
accustomed to, and they felt at 
last there was something to 
appreciate — they had not alto- 
gether wasted their sanctimoni- 
ous afternoon. . . . 

. . . I shall be glad to get 
away from Bournemouth as soon 
as possible. I shall have to 
brave the wratJi of the Professor, 
as the cemetery here is well-stocked, and he wont have 
half enough time to "do" it thoroughly. . . . 

Yours, etc., 






Godalming. 



My dear M., 

Just a line to tell yon that I pass through 
town to-morrozv on my way north, and am looking 
forward to having a chat with yon during my brief 
breathing space in the city of cities. I promise you 
faithfully that I will abstain from all mention of 
the " Humours of Parliament " or the Professor : I 
should tliink you have had enough of them by this 
time. I feel it my incumbent duty to enliven the 
monotony of touring every now and then by a prac- 
tical joke, which I generally perpetrate at the expense 
of Mac. We have just left an old-fasJiioned hotel at 
Lewes, in which the Boots, as zvell as Mac, has been 
my victim. On retiring at niglit, I fished out of my 
boot-bag one boot out of each pair. There zvere five 
different boots altogether, and these I placed carefully 



FLYING VISITS. 



183 



hi a row outside my door. In the morning I zvas 
azvoke by a muttering outside in the passage, and I 
chuckled to myself at the discomfiture of the Boots. ' 
When he had finisJied his soliloquy and gone his way 
I opened the door ; there were the five boots cleaned, 




all in a row. I rung the bell violently and said 
there must be some mistake, all my boots were odd 
ones. They were all for the right foot, and I told 
them I wasn't an owner of a wooden leg. The poor 
Boots was up a tree — a boot-tree, in fact — and could 
only scratch his head. Then I opined that it must 
have been my companion's mischievous humor, and 
suggested that lie, the Boots, should find some means 



1 84 



FLYING VISITS. 



of retaliation ; so he selected a pair of my boots 
which most resembled Mac's, and put them outside his 
door, while I packed Macs away in my bag. I 
walked off to the station as usual, and had really for- 
gotten all about the incident, and the train zvas Just 
about to start, when I found that the luggage had not 
turned up. However, it arrived just in time, with 
Mac I imping painfully along by the side, and high up 
on the hill I could see the Boots convulsed with laugh- 
ter, and pointing Mac out to an amused group of the 
hotel servants. I suppose it was the feeling of a second 
boyhood that prompted me to perpetrate this joke, as I 

zvas on my way to 
a public school — 
Chart er house, to 
wit — where I gave 
m y entertainment 
to an excellent and 
appreciative audi- 
ence of the boys and 
their friends. At 
the time of writing I am returning to town by the last 
train, which insists upon stopping at every little out- 
of-the-way station to take in milk-cans. I think there 
is nothing so irritating in travelling as the clattering 
and banging of milk-cans. I would rather travel in a 



JM^ 1 







FLYING VISITS. 1 85 

cattle-truck with the beasts themselves than on a train 
which stops to take in their produce. It annoys me 
so that I must leave everything till I see you and have 
a chat with you over a cup of coffee, ivithout milk. 
As when I am with you the subject of the Professor 
is tabooed, I may tell you now that he is staying till 
Monday at Lewes, where he is going to spend a happy 
Sunday inspecting the jail, and he is going to have 
the (to him) inestimable treat of sleeping all night 
in the cell in which the murderer Lefroy spent his last 
moments. 

Yours, etc., 




NOTES BY THE WAY, AND A 
LOOK IN AT RIPON. 





The Last Coach of the Season— The Old Style and the New— 
The Black Country — A Modern Hades — Peaceful Ripon 
— I Explore the Wrong Hotel — The Wail of the Nine 
o'Clock Horn — The Facetious Producer thereof — " Old 
Boots" — " Made in Germany" — Germans. English Wait- 
ers — The Mayor's Procession — " We don't like London." 

|OMING away from 
the " Sunny South" 
in a cold rain and 
a biting- east wind, 
wrapped in your 
railway rugs, it is 
enough to spoil your 
romantic picturings 
of the good old 
days when you peer through 
the wet window - pane oi 
your comfortable railway 
carriaee and see the last coach of the season, 
passengerless, cheerlessly winding its way 
through the muddy lanes, while the melan- 
choly guard is winding his unmusical horn, 



i IS 



§¥ 



A LOOK IN AT RIPON. 



1 8/ 



and the weather-beaten driver emits a disdain- 
ful grunt as the express rushes by. Probably 
the old driver's thoughts, when he sees the 
train swerve as it rattles noisily over the 
points, turn to the remark which one of his 
comrades is reported to have made when a 
railway traveller remarked on the frequency 




of coach accidents as compared with railway 
casualties: "Yes," said the old-fashioned 
Jehu, " when a coach turns over you are laid 
nicely on the soft turf, and — there you are ! 
but when there is a railway smash, where are 
you f " 

But had we not the iron horse, I suppose 
we should not have that prosperous, if repul- 
sive and unsightly, district known as the 
Black Country, which stretches in all its 



1 88 FLYING VISITS. 

grimy hideousness on either side of the rail- 
way track as our train passes rapidly through 
the Midlands, with chimneys pouring forth 
volumes of dense smoke, engines panting, 
furnaces roaring, hammers clanging, and 



myriads of half-clad, smoke-begrimed men 
toiling incessantly, looking to an unaccus- 
tomed eye like a vast army of diabolical 
fiends, as they pass to and fro in the lurid 
light of this modern Hades. It is a sight to 
make a Ruskin shudder, and a capitalist 
smile. 



A LOOK IN AT RIP ON. 



1 89 



Having spent some weeks going over the 

various centres of 
industry in this bee- 
hive of commerce, it 
is a relief to find one- 
self stranded in a 
quiet old Cathe- 
d r a 1 Town, 
which has noth- 
i n g modern 
about it, where 
the sound of the 
coach - horn is 



still heard, and the 
shrill whistle of the 
locomotive is kept at a 
distance. Such a spot 
is Ripon. The com- 
mercial gentleman, 
having found little busi- 
ness doing in such a 
place, looks gloomy, 
as, seated on his sample 
cases at the station, he awaits his train 





and 



190 FLYING VISITS. 

a young lady, in all probability the daughter 
of one of the clergy who pervade the neigh- 
borhood, is about to start for the metrop- 
olis, to seek a wider field in which to earn, 
perhaps, something more than her accustomed 
bread-and-butter. 

Perhaps nothing will demonstrate the 
apathetic lethargy of Ripon more than an 
incident which happened to me soon after I 
arrived. There are two well-known old- 
fashioned hotels next door but one to each 
other, either of which would delight the heart 
of an antiquarian ; so much alike that, after 
a short walk, I returned to my hotel, as I 
thought, walked upstairs, but couldn't for the 
life of me find either my sitting-room or my 
bedroom. There was not a soul to be seen, 
and silence reigned supreme. I tried every 
room in the house, rang bells, pocketed silver 
spoons, broke into the larder, and was just in 
the act of demolishing a rabbit-pie I found 
there, when a horrible thought struck me 
that the proprietor and servants had de- 
camped with my luggage, after drugging my 
luckless travelling companion. Nervously I 
approached the huge grandfather's clock in the 
hall, fully expecting to discover his lifeless body 



A LOOK IN AT RIP ON. 



191 



hidden in its interior, when the Town Crier 
happened to pass, and I went to the door, think- 
ing I might require his services, and there I dis- 
covered I had come into the wrong hotel, so, with 
a sigh of relief, I entered the right one, having 
ransacked the other and never met a soul ! 

I believe these excellent hostelries are 
crammed in the summer time by tourists, a 
great number of 
them Ameri- '.*' 
cans, who put fys//* 



and thence 
make pilgrim- 
ages to Fountain 
Abbey, Hackfall, 
Newby Hall, and 
other places of 
interest abound- 
ing in this neighborhood. The first night 
I was in Ripon I had hardly finished dinner 
when I heard a -most diabolical sound, 
long drawn out and thrice repeated, like the 
mournful wail of an asthmatical fog-horn. In 
reply to my inquiry as to whence it came, my 
good host informed me that this was a relic of 




192 



FLYING VISITS. 



the days of the curfew, and that the sound 
emanated from a horn which was blown in the 
market-place at nine o'clock every night. The 
horn - blower was brought in, and, while I 
was making a sketch of him, amused me by 
telline me incidents that 
had occurred during the 
exercise of his profession. 
On one occasion a tem- 

r^ A^^i^^^^L^ ^""s perance preacher 

asked to be allowed 
to blow the horn. 
He had a try, but 
the result was a miserable 
failure, upon which he asked 
the horn-blower if he were 
a teetotaller, to which our 
friend replied emphatically, 
" Naw ! " 

" But then, my good 
man," continued the orator, 
" your soul will be con- 
demned to eternal purgatory ! " 

" Gaw on," said he of the powerful lungs. 
" What dis Shaakespeare say ? Whoy, 'e that 
drinketh sleepeth, and 'e that sleepeth com- 
mitteth naw sin." 




A LOOK IN AT RIPON. 193 

This completely stumped the temperance 
man, and the horn-blower went on to tell us 
that later on the preacher was fervently orating 
on the evils of alcohol outside a public-house, 
and that all the customers had come out to 
listen to him. The proprietor, seeing this, 
put a card in the window with the short and 
concise notice on it, " Free beer within ! " and 
in an instant the temperance enthusiast found 
himself vehemently declaiming to airy nothing. 
" And t' finish was that the temperance man 
went int' t' pub himself," concludes the worthy 
performer on the horn. 

But how strange it is that in a place where 
railways are kept at a distance, where the old 
curfew still is sounded, where everything is 
typical of slowness, inactivity, and antiquity, 
where crood York ham and fine old English 
ale gladden the heart and stomach of the 
traveller, and in an inn, too, that is famous 
all over the world for the strong personality of 
its old " Boots," who was one of the curiosities 
of the last century, that here, even here, you 

find the German waiter. We all object 

to cheap German importations, from German 
toys to German beer, but I am not one of 
those who object to the German waiter. I 



i 9 4 



FLYING VISITS. 



have always found him obliging, quiet, and 
clean, in strong contrast to his more in- 
attentive and not always polite English 
coiifrere. This Old Boots that I mentioned 
"has," to quote the inscription accompanying 
an old portrait of him in the inn, " by nature 
and habit, acquired the power of holding a 
piece of money between his nose and chin." 
But Old Boots has long since gone, and when 
the German waiters follow his example, I 
trust to see their places taken 
by neat - handed and neatly - 
/Jf^X dressed Phyllises, such as the 
2.ilis^,\ one I show in my sketch, 

but at present this is but 
an ideal. Before leaving 
the old place I was 
lucky enough to witness the 
quarterly procession of the 
Mayor to the Cathedral, 
which I suppose takes the 
place of our metropolitan 
Lord Mayor's Show. The 
spectacle of the Mayor, 
attended by a few policemen and ordinary- 
looking gentlemen with fur-trimmed coats, 
is satisfactory to Ripon, although a contrast to 




A LOOK IN AT RIPON. 



195 



the London cere 
mony ; and 
when the func- 
tion is over the 
Mayor walks 
home to his 
butcher's 
shop, with the 
mace - bearer 
solemnly pac- 
ing in front of 
him, and next 
day he puts on 





striped apron again and 
" weighs out at 5s. 4d." 

As I am leaving on my way 

to the commercial centres of 

the North, I see a contrast 

to the young lady and the 

commercial gentleman 

who were there when I 

arrived, in the back 

views of two Spaldings 

waiting for the up train, 

who probably before 

long will be saying, "We 

* don't like London." 



t ,vV 




4* 



/ 



r 



Ripon. 



My dear M., 

I find that Saturday evenings in large 
tozvns, although they are good for tlieatrical business, 
are not so for other entertainments ; so I generally find 
myself shelved off to a comparatively small tozvu for 
those nights, which mea?is being landed there for the 

Sunday as well ; so 



this c x p I a in s my 
writing you nozv 
from Ripon. . 

. . . Until 
I visited Cathedral 
toivns it was always 
a mystery to me that 
a bishop should re- 
ceive such a large 
honorarium. The Bishop of Ripon receives £^00 




FLYING VISITS. 1 97 

per annum, and I am not surprised to learn that it is not 
often lie is seen in the place. I would not take tliree 
times that amount and live in Ripon, if I had to 
amuse or instruct the inhabitants, although the coun- 
try round about is beautiful and suitable enough for a 
quiet country life. It poured on Sunday, and al- 
though ive found a little excitement in the morning in 
watching the grooms from country houses in the neigh- 
borhood dash up on horseback to the post-office oppo- 
site for the letters ; when this subsided all ivas quiet, 
and the dismal courtyard-looking square was left in 
solitude until the time came to make preparations for 
the great quarterly event — the procession in state of 
the Mayor to the Cathedral, which I have described in 
"Black and White," and which caused just about as 
much excitement and crowd as the sight of a barrister 
with his wig on in the street in the vicinity of the Law 
Courts would do in London. In the evening the place 
was as still as the Arctic Regions until we zuere 
startled by the lugubrious wail of the nine o'clock 
horn ; and I really believe that if the Sunday League 
commenced operations Jiere they would only be sup- 
ported by the horn-blower, one policeman, and Mary 
fane, if it were her Sunday out. It is not so in the 
" canny toon " of Nezvcastle, wJiicJi is our next move. 
You will recollect my telling you what audiences I had 



198 FLYING VISITS. 

there on Sunday evenings in the old Tyne Theatre ; 
it zvas packed from floor to ceiling. . . . 

. . . The Professor has a great contempt for the 
old Boots who nsed to do duty at this hotel, andzvJiose 
only qualification to have his name inscribed on the 
scroll of fame was the fact of his being able to hold 
a coin between his nose and chin. The Professor had 
heard of or had known, or knew someone who had 
heard of or had known, of a waiter who could bite bits 
off his ears : a man who could stick a knitting-needle 
through the calf of his leg, and who delighted in con- 
verting his arms into pin-cushions ; and a Buttons 
who fairly revelled in sandwiches made out of can- 
dle-grease and slioc-blacking, washed down with 
paraffin oil ! . . . 

Yours, &c, 




MEMS. ON THE MERSEY. 



A Cosmopolitan Spot— Landing Stage Dramas— Playing His 
First Part— A Busy Watery Highway— The Ferries- 
Business and Pleasure— Mr. Simpson— A Polar Picture— 
A Suggestion to Dramatists. 

All the world's a stage, truly, but the narrow 
floating quay on the Mersey is a stage for all 
the world. Innumerable types of humanity 
from all parts stand upon it, and the observer 
could not find a happier hunting ground for 
the study of his fellow man. The busy man 
of commerce rubs shoulder with the loafer ; 
the sun-tanned sailor from the Southern seas 
stands side by side with the intrepid explorer 
of the Polar regions ; the hungry, hunted ne'er- 
do-weel with eager, longing eyes watches tons 
of splendid meat being rapidly landed, and as 
rapidly carted away ; while the rich Colonial 
throws his fragrant Havana languidly away, to 
be quickly snatched up by the poor dog less 
fortunate than himself. 

There is many a touch of tragedy upon 
that stage. Talk of free theatres! This is 
the freest of all ! See that good-looking youth 



■+"*! 




MEMS. ON THE MERSEY. 201 

quickly pass to the tender bound for the large 
ocean steamer, which with steam up is signi- 
fying with hoarse whistles its readiness to start ; 
his clothes are neat and new, and his luggage 
shows little mark of travel ; he nervously 
shows histicket as he steps on to the gangway 
of the boat ; a couple of ordinary-looking men 
are standing close by ; he glances at them ; 
their gaze is firm ; he winces ; one approaches 
and hands him a paper ; the paddles begin to 
revolve, and the tender steams off minus one 
passenger ! A couple next attracts your atten- 
tion — a youth even younger than the last, with 
nothing of the clerk about him ; he is of aris- 
tocratic mien, and on his arm has a pretty 
young lady. He looks determined ; she pale 
and anxious. As they board the next tender 
his eyes are fixed on the steamer in the distance, 
while hers are peering nervously around. Their 
luggage on board, off they go ! The nervous 
tension is relaxed, and with a sigh of heartfelt 
relief she sinks down upon the seat ; he care- 
lessly lights a cigar. They turn round and 
face the landin^-sta^e as the tuof churns its 
way through the thick water of the muddy 
Mersey. 

Suddenly she starts up and utters a fright- 



202 



FLYING VISITS. 



ened cry, he drops his cigar and mutters a 
curse between his clenched teeth — a figure has 
rushed on to the stage. The angry father is 
quickly in pursuit upon another tug — it is the 
old, old story ; indeed, there is very little new 
material in this mixture of comedies and 
tragedies in real life which is day by day 
enacted on the Liverpool landing-stage, and 
the bystanders are callous. But late at night 
and early in the morning 
may be noticed a youthful 
actor playing his first part. 
In all probability he has 
been mingling with the 
crowd all day, anxiously 
waiting to seize the merest 
chance of escape from the 
chill poverty and distress 
of his fatherland to those 
sunny climes far away 
across the sea, flowing 
with milk and honey, 
Elysian fields which have often passed in 
ecstatic review through his juvenile brain. 
Tired out and disappointed, he falls asleep 
in a corner of the landing-stage, but is 
awoke from the phantasy of his troubled 




MEMS. ON THE MERSEY. 



203 



dreams by a kindly official, one who has saved 
many and many a lad from a fatal mistake, 
and is frustrated in his foolish endeavor. 
When I write my next article on Liverpool, I 
will include a sketch both in pen and pencil of 
this worthy, philanthropic man. 

Perhaps no greater contrast could be found 
to the Twickenham ferry of song than the 
Liverpool ferry of everyday life. The ferry- 
man of the Thames and his sweetheart would 
be out of place in this busy liquid highway of 
commerce. The ferries that ply on the Mersey 
are a perfect army of watery conveyances. As 

an illustration — were 
you to take, for in- 
stance, that busy whirl- 
pool in the never-ending 






r 



a J- ' ■-. -—- 




204 



FLYING VISITS. 



stream of city traffic yclept " The Bank," when 
there is a block of vehicles, and float it whole- 
sale, that would convey to you some idea of the 
deck of one of the goods ferries that ply on 
the Mersey. They are ponderous, ungainly, 
almost circular craft. 

Alongside the stage the solid gangway is let 
down ; and truly it may well be solid, for over 
it pass brewers' drays, pantechnicon vans, and 
butchers' carts, which, with hand-carts, bales 
of goods, and other miscellaneous articles, help 
to constitute a most varied and nondescript 
deck cargo. Since the Mersey Tunnel was 
opened busy men of commerce, to whom time 




MEMS. ON THE MERSEY 



205 



is money, speed along under the river instead 
of skimming over its surface ; but when time 
permits and the weather is fine, you may find 
Cheeryble Brothers chatting over the day's 
fluctuations in stocks and shares, and discuss- 
ing the latest market quota- 
tions in one corner of the 
boat ; while I made a note 
of a young lady, a Lanca- 
shire lass of the better 
class, who was evi- 
dently seeking an 
antidote to the close 
atmosphere of the 
city in the fresh river 
breeze. For the 
sum of sixpence 
you can get a 
fair sample of 
this commodity 
by taking a 
return ticket to 
New Brighton, 
at the mouth of the river. Looking back at 
the busy scene you are leaving as your boat 
ploughs along down the river, it is most 
curious to note the vast numbers of tugs, 




>o6 



FLYING VISITS. 



tenders, and ferries importantly puffing their 
way about the river in all directions — it is a 
gigantic, ever-changing kaleidoscope, not very 
much varied in color, it is true, but active 
in the extreme. 

One feature of the landing-stage departed 
some years ago in the person of Mr. Simpson, 
whose temperance biiffet was so 
well known. This eccentric in- 
dividual might almost be classed 
with Davy of Kingstown Har- 
described in 
letter, although 

I — 




Mr. Simpson was more aristocratic, and had 
actually run for Parliament. However, he was 
more at home on the landing-stage, feeding the 
birds and smoking his cigar, than delivering 
political harangues upon the platform. 



MEMS, ON THE MERSEY. 207 

Even the very waters of the Mersey savor 
of business ; there is nothing sluggish about 
them, and taking their character from the 
banks from which they roll, they hurry along 
seaward as if time were precious to them. I 
remember going down to Liverpool about ten 
years ago, during that very severe winter, to 
sketch the effects of the storm of snow and 
ice, and I shall never forget the extraordinary 
picture the Mersey then, presented. Snow- 
bound ships, frozen boats, and huge masses of 
floating ice, canopied over by a dull leaden sky, 
combined to make up a scene worthy of the 
Polar regions, and the worthy Mr. Simpson I 
mentioned before was busier than ever, trying 
to keep the poor weather-beaten birds alive. 
In the principal thoroughfare of the town itself 
stood a roofless house undergoing repairs. 
Icicles hung from the top of the building down 
to the ground, from every rafter and ever 
projection ; and some enterprising speculator 
had hit upon the happy idea of allowing the 
British public to go in at so much a head to 
view this curiosity of Nature. Paradoxical as 
it may seem, this show was not a frost. 

But, as I said before, the centre of interest 
on the Mersey is the landing-stage, and I 



208 FLYING VISITS. 

rather wonder that Mr. Pinero or Mr. Henry 
Arthur Jones has never taken this stage for his 
own. They could bring in well-known people 
of to-day, which seems to be becoming the 
fashion in present-day drama. The Lyceum 
company starting for America, surrounded by 
their friends ; Mr. Terriss jumping into the 
chill waters of the Mersey to save one more 
life, in his usual melodramatic fashion ; Mr. 
Wyndham, ever thirsting for sensation, follow- 
ing the steamer in a canoe, capsizing in mid- 
stream, and saving himself .by means of the 
patent Criterion safety-belt — which, when 
collapsed, resembles a German dictionary ; 
and they must not forget to introduce Mr. 
Beerbohm Tree, and our old friend Mr. Toole. 
Of course, several politicians might be brought 
in, and Major Pond might be chaperoning 
someone of light and learning to the land of 
the brave and the free. As for singers, I have 
more than once met the genial Mr. Edward 
Lloyd upon the landing-stage ; and if Mr. 
Pinero or Mr. Jones wants to fill up a corner, 
I am open to stand there, notebook in hand, 
to sketch these notabilities. 




Liverpool. 

My dear M., 

In rummaging among my papers I came 
across the folloiving, which I intended for publication 
as an article, and I send it to you to show you what 
a complete transformation has been effected in six 
months' time. 

" 1 arrived in one of the largest toivns in England 
for the purpose of giving my entertainment ; and de- 
clining the hospitality of friends, as I had a great 
deal of work to do, I engaged rooms at the leading 
hotel, an establishment as well known to the traveller 
in the provinces as is Westminster Abbey or the 
Tozver to the cockney born and bred. Every tiling 
connected with it was old and crusted, and thoroughly 
1 English, you know? The same hall-porter had 
opened the door to our fathers, and guided them to 
bed in the small hours of the morning ; the same Jiead- 
chambermaid had heard the strong language with 



210 FLYING VISITS. 

which they used to relieve their feelings when the but- 
ton at the back of their collar few off, and she it was 
who was requisitioned to sew anotlicr on for them. 
Aye, some of the old port and Chateau Lafitte still re- 
main in the cellars, and the lie ad-waiter brings it to 
you in the same zvicker cradle wherein he had con- 
veyed many a bottle to your father, and with the same 
scientific care ; but the hand is now enfeebled that 
pours out the liquid link wliicJi connects the past with 
the present.'" 

As I ran up the steps of the hotel old John opened 
the door to me, but the welcoming smile zvith which 
he was wont to greet me was absent from his counte- 
nance, and in place of it he wore an air of deep and 
unwonted gravity, which betokened something wrong. 
Immediately following me came a small party of 
A mericans, and in the go-ahead style peculiar to their 
race they very soon monopolized old John. 

"And Jioivs Jolin — fit, eh? Now, John, fetch 
doivn the old lady from the first-floor right quick ; I 
want her to know my zvife straight away. She knows 
all about Maggie, I guess ! " 

" Sorry to say she Jiaint "ere no more, sir," replies 
John, sadly. 

" What ? You don't say Mag's joined the major- 
ity ? Pve been lookiii forward to shakiri the old gal 
by the hand ! " 

" She's joined the majority of the rest of the hotel 



FLYING VISITS. 211 

servants, sir" pathetically whispered John. " We're 
all going — I leave to-night. Place been bought by 
railway company ; clean sweep from top to bottom ; 
furniture all to be sold ; and hall of Jius goes as 
well ! " 

" Well, I'm darned ! It's a tarnation shame ! I 
don't want new faces and new furniture to this hotel ; 
I zvant the old smiles and old friends ! Here's a dol- 
lar for you, Jollity and good luck to you. I reckon we'll 
go over the way ; " and with a sad longing look at the 
old door, the Yankee departed with his friends. 

I went in. 

" Hang it ! What in the name of creation's 
that ? " 

That was a considerable quantity of cement and dust 
which had descended 011 my head. 

" Werry sorry, sir" came apparently from a pair 
of feet on a ladder over my head ; " I'm removing the 
old sign." 

'''And put up a tablet to the old hands" I said, 
passing on to the office. 

I found I was in a hotel that was in process of 
transformation. I could not go elsewhere, as I had 
made my appointments and had given the name of 
the hotel as my address to my numerous correspond- 
ents ; but I shall never forgive myself for not follow- 
ing the example of the Yankee in taking rooms some- 
where else. 



212 FLYING VISITS. 

" This way, sir ; the staircase is under repairs, so 
we must use the servants' 1 stairs." 

I slipped, stumbled, and fell over bricks, piles of 
mortar, and disjointed doors ; and I zvas just enter- 
ing the room pointed out to me as mine when I found 
myself caught by the neck and nearly strangled. My 
unseen assassin turned out to be one of the bell zvires 
which were hanging down across the threshold. I 
had to make a perilous journey to my bedroom ; but 
once I zvas inside it, I found I couldn't get out. The 
builders had erected a barricade outside the door, and 
were vigorously banging at the walls, so that my ap- 
pealing voice zvas drowned, and I thought that every 
minute the zvalls would collapse. . I at last managed 
to crawl out through the ladders, and eventually got 
to work in my sitting-room. As the evening closed in 
the place seemed like a Jiauntcd hotel. The mysteri- 
ous noises in the zvalls and the hollozvuess of the 
echoes were trying to one's nerves after a long rail- 
way journey, particularly to one engaged on imagina- 
tive zvork. Hozvever, I went on undisturbed until a 
cold something or other tickled me on the top of my 
head, and then seemed to run all dozvn my spine. 
Horrorstruck, I started tip, when to my relief I found 
it zvas a zvire which was dangling dozvn from a hole 
in the ceiling. At that moment the door opened, and 
a man peeped in and said: "Excuse me, sir, but 
we're getting the electric light zvires in here.'" 1 



FLYING VISITS. 



213 






had received the first shock already. The next morn- 
ing, while peaceably at work in the same room, in 
walked a dumpy gentleman in a thick overcoat and 
muddy boots, follozved by another man holding a 
note-book and pencil i7i his hand. "An arrest," 
thought I ; " mistaken identity ! " Shock No. 2. 
My fears proved to be groundless, and I was relieved 
to hear that they were 
only making an inven- 
tory of the contents of 
the room. The dumpy 
gentleman in the thick 
coat and mtiddy boots 
measured some of the 
things, rapped others, 
pommelled the rest^ 
and sneered at all, &"- '^**** Onrush 
while tlie other gentleman wrote down the report. I 
was simply petrified to see that they included my goods 
and chattels in the inventory ; and when the dumpy 
gentleman in the thick coat and muddy boots cast his 
eagle eye upon me, I fully expected to hear him say, 
" One stuffed figure, 5 feet 2-J inches high, well stuffed, 
little worn on the top of the head, modern design, 
value trivial ! " 

" Table d'hote was served on the staircase, and we 
had to use the kitchen as a smoking-room. . . ." 

However, I think this is enough to shozv you the 




214 FLYING VISITS. 

topsy-turvy dom I was in the midst of. I am writing 
now from this identical hotel ; but when I arrived I 
received shock No. 3 — the transformation was so mar- 
vellous and so complete. As everything was dull, 
gloomy, rough-and-ready looking in the old days, so it 
is the acme of modern luxury and convenience now — 
a hotel a Sybarite would feel at home in, and which 
must be seen to be believed. The vulgar ringing of 
bells is done away with, and in its stead hangs by 
every bedstead the latest patent in telephones, the only 
drazvback to which is the fact that you cannot escape 
from anyone who wants to ring you up, a?td who is 
switched on to you from the hotel office ; in fact I 
was woke up at six o'clock this morning to hear the 
fearful news that there had been a big fire at the 
docks, and that fourteen men had been burnt alive. 
Need I say that the Professor was at the other end of 
the wire t . . . 

Ever yours, 




-THE GRANITE CITY." 



My First and Last Haggis— The Granite— Noises by Day and 
Night — The Tintinnabulation of the Bells— Festivities in 
connection therewith — My Banquet — My Host — The 
Scotch Humorist—" Auld Lang Syne," and the Effects 
it Produces — " Linked Arms, Long Drawn Out." 

SHOULD like to 
be a little more 
personal in this 
letter " On Tour" 
than I have 
been in those 
preceding the 
present, and 
£*? in doing so 
J dwell upon 
f^l the great hos- 
pitality of the 
Scotch people. 
Before you 
cross the border, invitations and letters of 
welcome reach you in shoals from all 
sides ; but unfortunately the chief object 
of my tour, that of entertaining the public, 
prevents my allowing myself to be enter- 




216 FLYING VISITS. 

tained by them, except upon rare occa- 
sions. I had not been in Edinburgh many 
hours before I was introduced to my first 
haggis, but, alas ! my English palate had not 
been educated to appreciate a dish so savory ; 
indeed, to be frank, I relished it as little as a 
teetotaller would have done the whiskey which, 
in obedience to the Scotch mandates apper- 
taining to the haggis, must immediately follow 
it. Business men threw down their office 
pens, and, arming themselves with their 
favorite golf-clubs, they escorted me to the 
links ; in fact, all seem to vie with each other 
in showering hospitality and kindness upon 
the stranger. 

The furthermost point I reached was 
Aberdeen, " The Granite City," the sketch of 
which accompanying this article was made 
from the window of my apartment in the 
hotel, in which room I was unfortunately con- 
fined, as a visitation for being in the fashion 
as far as contracting a bad cold is concerned. 
The " Granite City" is well named, for it 
looks as if the well-proportioned buildings 
had been hewn out of one solid mass of stone. 
To complete the picture, the masons were 
hard at work remodelling the street ; and long 



21 8 FLYING VISITS. 

lorries would pass my window at intervals, 
each freighted with a heavy load of granite. 
To be shut up in an hotel on a damp day is 
hardly what one would select as the acme of 
enjoyment, and your pleasure is not greatly 
increased when your view is that of a railway, 
with its shrieking and whistling, and shunting 
and grunting, and puffing and blowing, always 
depressing, no matter whether you happen to 
be in the Granite City of the North, the busy 
midland centres, or the great metropolis itself. 
But the noises in the day time were nothing 
to those at night. Oh, those bells ! those 
bells ! When one lives in a town for any 
time, one gets accustomed to the local mid- 
night peals, and it is well known that the 
townsman who goes to the country cannot 
sleep at first because he misses the nocturnal 
melodies which were wont to smite his ear; 
but the traveller, passing rapidly from one 
town to another, does not get a chance of 
becoming acquainted with the various terrors 
of midnight bell-ringing in store for him. 

At Aberdeen I had retired to the warmth 
of my sitting-room to nurse my cold, as soon 
as I returned from my nightly exertions on the 
platform, when I heard the first specimen of 



11 THE GRANITE CITY:' 219 

the chimes with which I had to contend during- 
the still watches of the night. I was about to 
write a treatise on the evils of bell-ringing, 
when from the floor below arose strange 
sounds of Gaelic music, singing, and jingling 
of glasses. On inquiry I was informed that 
the festivities were in honor of the Belgian 
bellringers. The waiter seemed very much 
surprised that this information did not at once 
convey to me all the explanation necessary, 
but by dint of further questioning I elicited 
the facts of the case. It appears that some 
bells the Aberdonians had purchased from 
Belgium did not meet with their unanimous 
approval. Their most expert bellringers were 
powerless to produce the proper tones, so the 
Aberdonians had two Belgian bellringers 
across to see what they could do with them. 
They executed fantasias on them with ease ; 
but even then the townspeople were not con- 
vinced that the bells were sound. However, 
whatever the ultimate upshot of it all was I 
don't know, but I do know that these sounds 
of revelry by night which proceeded from the 
floor underneath mine were the result of a 
banquet given to these gentlemen on their 
departure. 



220 



FLYING VISITS. 




Wnr; 



I had no opportunity of sallying forth in 
search of the necessary "copy" wherewith to 
fill my allotted weekly space, so I must leave 
the granite of the city alone, and limit myself 
to dealing with the hospitality of the people. 

I was particularly honored in this city of 
the far North by a banquet given to me by the 
members of the Pen and 
Pencil Club. Now we have 
every week in the illustrated 
papers banquets of this 
character described and 
sketched from the special 
artist's point of 
view, who illus- 
trates the event 
as he would a 
scene in a new 
play ; but as the 
actor sees very 
differently, and 
feels very differ- 
ently, from the 
audience, so do 
the banqueters 
view the event 
from a different standpoint to the ba?iquetee ; 




THE GRANITE CITY: 



221 



at least, this is what has always struck me 
in my rather varied experience of this sort 
of thing. It was particularly interesting to 
me to be received in truly Scotch fashion, 
and my sketches are framed partly on 
what I actually experienced and partly on 
what I dreamt after the banquet. The noble 
chieftain, the chairman of the evening, who 
received me, had an overawing- effect, being as 
he was of large proportions and clad in his 
national costume, which was an agreeable 
change from the conventional dinner dress. 

The after - dinner 
routine differed from 
that of most other 



gatherings of a ^\( 
similar nature, inter- / I \ 
spersed as it was with /^ 
singing and recita- 
tions ; and although 
no doubt the Scotch 
humorist was excru- 
ciatingly funny, yet 
the guest of the 
evening was not 
happy, for he knew that the time was drawing 
near when he would have to interrupt the 





222 



FLYING VISITS. 



harmony with his more or less musical voice 
upraised in speech, and the climax of his 
discomfort was reached when the chairman 
rapped the table, rose to his legs, and, in 






JIJJ ' 



f jri 4 




eulogistic words, ascribed to the guest mani- 
fold virtues which he had been hitherto 
unaware that he possessed, and proceeded 
to read the poetic outpourings of an 
Aberdonian Tennyson ; after which followed 
more songs and recitations. No banquet, 
supper, dinner, or any festivity on this side of 



THE GRANITE CITY." 



223 



the Tweed would be complete unless it was 
brought to a conclusion by the singing of 

45* 




" Auld Lang Syne" ; and for one rather broad 
in proportion to his height, it is rather a 
difficult matter to make his arms stretch 




across his chest so as he can grasp his neigh- 
bors' hands. My first experience of this 



224 



FLYING VISITS. 



r/^t(\ 



ordeal was at a banquet given to Mr. Henry 
Irving in Glasgow, where it must have been 
ludicrous in the extreme to see me linked 
between the tall form of Mr. Irving and the 
burly figure of Colonel Cody, better known as 

-Buffalo Bill." I am 
quite positive no artist 
could do justice to the 
feelings of one un- 
-jj accustomed to the limb- 
%? stretching proceeding, 
<-| and my dream of the 
after-effects was some- 
thing like the sketch I 
give you here, " Linked 
arms, long drawn out ! " 
However, I am de- 
lighted in spirit and 
-rf= ^ none the worse in the 

flesh for my most pleasant sojourn in the 
home of hospitality, the " Land o' Cakes." 




w 



Aberdeen, 



My dear M., 

I advise you to eschezv all marmalade for 
some time to come, as I have just left Dundee in the 
terrible clutches of Id. grippe. // is a perfect plague ; 
and if you want to be " up to snuff " while travelling 
in these infected districts, my advice is, take it. 
Snuff taking is a horrible and atrocious habit no 
doubt, hit a celebrated medical ma?i proved to me that 
it is the greatest enemy to the influenza ; and I am 
glad to say that with the aid of this prescription we 
have sneezed at eucalyptus and quinine, a?id have 
safely braved the dangers which beset the home of 
marmalade. There is a perfect panic in the town, 
which is fatal to all entertainments, fust fancy, 
Padcreivski was advised not to go there to fulfil his 
engagement, as no one would venture out to hear him, 
so he went to St. Andrew s instead. His hair would 



226 



FLYING VISITS. 



have stood on cud more than eve?- if lie had ventured, 
as I did, into " Bonny Dundee" which for the time 
being is a perfect hospital ; in fact one of the papers 
advised people to go to my show in ambulances if they 

were unable to get there any 
other way. 

I have got such a wretched 
cold that I did not feel at 
all equal to the compli- 
ment paid me by the worthy 
Aberdouiaus, who to-niglit 
gave a banquet in my Iwnor. 
It was a great success, but 
I wasn't. It has always been 
my custom to speak extem- 
pore ; but a few nights ago 
I was sitting next to Irving at a banquet given to 
him in Glasgow, and I noticed that, with Jus usual 
artistic finish and tact, he read his speech, and deliv- 
ered it in that graceful way peculiarly his own, so I 
thought that I would imitate him as far as reading 
my speech went ; but I shall never do so again, as I 
felt constrained, and not at all at home as I usually 
do. But don't you think it was enough to unnerve any- 
one, having to reply after such flattering verses as the 
following had been recited, particularly after giving 
my entertainment two nights running on the top of a 
severe cold? — 




FLYING VISITS. 22^ 

" My fellow -sinners, we are met to-night 
To honor one — a bright and shining light — 
Known through the universe as o?ie zuho wields 
A clever pencil in the comic fields ; 
One who portrays, with hand both deft and swift, 
* The Humours of Parliament ' — a gift, 
No matter where we look or where we turn, is 
The gift of none but genial Harry Furniss. 

" Some think the Sketchist's duty of to-day 
Is beer and skittles, with a lot of play, 
And that cartoons and co??iic sketches are 
Flashed off precisely like a shooting star; 
That comic sketch is Is daily they hob-nob 
With fun, imagining that such a job 
The happiest' s that's found below the sun, 
When 'tis in truth a melancholy one. 

" To sketch cartoons within a given time, 
To blend the funny with the grand sublime, 
To place our statesmen in all forms a?id shapes, 

As jockeys, lions, elephants, and apes, 

A nd still to make their countenances true, 

Is not a very easy thing to do; 
To tackle the ideas of another, 

Perhaps be called upon to slate a brother ; 

u To sketch one 's friends in every situation 
Is not the most delightful occupation ; 
But genius does accoi?iplish such an e7id — 
That genius is, I think, our guest and friena. 
Though aye in ' Punch,' he doesn't ' toady' to 
Great Britain's lights, but gives each one his ' dew* 
And with our statesmen weekly plays ' old Harry,* 
But of all insults is ' chary — very ! ' 



228 



FLYING VISITS. 



" And even when he limns the great Greek scholar, 
He draws, but raises not, old Gladstones 'cholerJ' 
To beard the British Lions bad, of course, 
But ' bearding ' Randy is a trifle worse ! 
Still this is done by * Punch's ' deft own hand, 
Creating laughter all throughout the land ; 
As people gaze upon his figures, marry, 
They bless the name of ' Parliamentary Harry ' / " 

. . . As a matter of fact, it was that awful 
Professor who was the cause of my cold. Going over the 

Tar Bridge 



? out of the 




window to 
sec the scene 
of the memor- 
able accident ; 

the Professor was leaning out of the window of all- 
ot Iter compartment ^ and all the way across the bridge he 

kept me at the window, gesticulating to me and shout- 
ing out a graphic description of the frightful disaster, 
most of the revolting details of wliicli, thank good/toss, 
were lost in the roar of the train. . . . 

Yours, &c, 




MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF -MODERN 
ATHENS." 



A Beautiful City — Statuary " de trop" — Sir Walter Scott's 
Monument — Prince Albert's Statue — The Castle — Bil- 
lings' Barracks — The One o'Clock Gun and its Effect — 
Dinnertime for Thomas McAtkins — Young Edinburgh — 
I View the City under Unfavorable Conditions. 

FAIR Edinburgh, familiarly termed " the 
Modern Athens/' no doubt shows to greater 
advantage through being in such close proxim- 
ity to her busy, commercial, overgrown sister, 
Glasgow. I am glad to say that I have not 
been disappointed in two beautiful cities, whose 
charms have been eulogized again and again, 
both by the pen of the poet and the pencil of 
the artist. Venice I found as Turner had 
painted her, and Edinburgh as beautiful as 
imagination could portray ; but as a set 
scene, to use a theatrical phrase, I must say 
that it occurred to me that Edinburgh is rather 
too profusely ornamented with monuments and 
statuary ; in fact a humorous writer might well 
be excused for comparing it to a gigantic cem- 
etery ; but this illusion is soon dispelled, for 



230 



FLYING VISITS. 



Edinburgh, both as regards the place and the 
people, is brightness itself. Naturally enough, 
as an artist I was attracted by this exhibition 
of multitudinous statues and monuments. The 




monument, of course, is that of the great Sir 
Walter Scott, standing opposite St. David 
Street. It is 200 feet high, the details are 
borrowed from Melrose Abbey, and built from 
a design by Mr. George Kemp ; it has been 



MODERN ATHENS: 



231 



braving the elements in this spot since 1840-4. 

But, then, I have not much sympathy with the 

over-elaboration of the stonemason. I think 

that, particularly in 

the case of a genius 

like Sir Walter, a 

monument of a less 

orthodox description 

miodit be erected to his 

memory. 

One tribute to the 
dead that struck me 
more than any other is 
in the forest of Fon- 
tainbleau. It is to the 
memory of Millet and 
his friend Rosseau, and 
consists of two beauti- 
fully - wrought medal- 
lions, beaten into the 
surface of a huge, 
rugged rock, in the 
centre of the country 
so dear to both these 
men. In Edinburgh there is a statue which 
seems to have been erected in protest against 
the prevailing conventionality. It is to the 




232 



FLYING VISITS. 



memory of Prince Albert. Poor Prince Albert ! 
Why was he so good, to be so caricatured by his 
admirers after he had gone ? There is a statue 
in Aberdeen where the poor Prince is collapsed 
on a chair, evidently overpowered by his pon- 
derous jack-boots. In Edinburgh the Prince 




is seated on his horse, an animal of inquisitive 
nature, for it is trying to peer down over the 



"MODERN ATHENS. 



233 



top of the pedestal at some figures whose faces 
are turned toward the base I admit I hadn't 
time to find out who these people were, but I 
was very much struck by a 
middle-aged gentleman in 
his robes, standing quietly 
by, a lady who 
is pulling at a 
bell she has 
already broken, 
a little child who 
is running away 
with the bell- * 

rope ; while the 
other figures, '-— ,- ~= 
representing 
sailors, working men, and others, seem rather 
disappointed at not being able to find any 
pegs to hang their wreaths upon. But this 
is hypercritical. Of course, very few statues can 
bear being scrutinized from all points of view 
without presenting some ridiculous feature or 
other ; and it is just the same with the im- 
pressive structures. The Castle, which, to 
quote the guide book, " crowns a precipitous 
greenstone rock rising to an altitude of 445 
feet above sea level," is as familiar to the 




234 



FLYING VISITS. 



Scotch as the dome of St. Paul's is to the 
Southron. A good many people have en- 
deavored from time to time to add to its 
beauties, but it was reserved for one Billings 
(good old Billings !) to erect barracks of a 
similar description to those usually found in 
toy boxes of Teutonic manufacture. Could 
not someone improve upon Billings ? Perched 
on the summit of the Castle, I was meditating 
upon this point, when suddenly I was knocked 




off my perch by the terrific report of a cannon. 
The clock struck one, and I ran down, Mac- 



MODERN ATHENS." 



235 



Dickory, dickory, dock ! Having somewhat 
recovered from this terrible shock, and follow- 




62*' 



ing the example of ninety per cent, of the good 
people of Edinburgh, having set my watch, I 
took rest on the second stage and was making 
a sketch of the battlements I had so quickly 



236 FLYING VISITS. 

descended, when, to my dismay, I saw a 
detachment of the kilted warriors of Scotland 
coming with marvellous rapidity down the 
precipitous steps. I had been awed and a 
little unnerved by reading about the imprison- 
ment of the Earl of Argyle and principal Car- 
stairs, and, perhaps, half dreaming of Billings, 
and I thought that the one o'clock gun had 
some deadly effect, and that barbaric acts of 
cannibalism were about to be enacted within 
the walls of Edinburgh Castle, for each son of 
Mars bore in his hands a large steaming dish. 
My fears were allayed, however, when I dis- 
covered that this was " Tammas McAtkins' " 
midday meal. 

Some people seem to have an idea that the 
Scotch are a phlegmatic race. Let me at once 
undeceive them. Chance brought before me in 
an authentic and forcible way that the Scotch 
have a grievance, a grievance which they feel 
keenly, and which, sooner or later, will be made 
of national importance ; probably Cabinets 
will be shaken to their foundation, and, perhaps, 
even a civil war will occur if the matter is not 
investigated and rectified very soon. It is no 
less an injustice, not to say an insult, to the 
Scotch, that in the Royal Arms used in Govern- 



MODERN ATHENS: 



237 



ment departments, principally at South Ken- 
sington, the Shamrock has ousted the Thistle 

from its accus- 
tomed place. 
No wonder 
Unionism is in- 
creasing over the 
border. Why 
not alter the 
Royal Arms, and 




have two lions rampant in- 
stead of one ? 

It would require the pen 
of the poet and the brush 
of the painter to fittingly 
describe the charms of the 
female portion of the resi- 
dents of the Caledonian 
capital. To see the young C*^* 
girls hurrying home from school with free, 
masculine strides, cheery faces, and flowing 




238 FLYING VISITS. 

locks, demonstrates clearly to the English ob- 
server that the robust blood of the hardy Scot- 
tish race is far from losing any of its ancient 
prestige. Princes Street, the promenade of all 
Edinburgh, is fairly alive with bevies of pretty 
girls of all ages and sizes, and on a fine after- 
noon outrivals Recent Street or the Kind's 
Road at Brighton. 

It seems a thousand pities that the beauty 
of the picturesque valley lying parallel to 
Princes Street should be desecrated by the 
smoke and the noise of the railway. The in- 
habitants fought hard to prevent the iron king 
from storming their town and claiming the 
charming valley as his own, but I believe that, 
unless balloon voyages had been practicable, 
the valley is the only channel for the vast flow 
of current traffic. 

" Never put off till to-morrow what can be 
done to-day" is a maxim, the truthfulness of 
which I now fully appreciate. I was anxious 
to make a sketch of Princes Street from the 
valley, but at the time I had selected for this 
operation I found fair Edinburgh town en- 
veloped in a thick mist which blurred her face 
all the rest of the time I was there. It is 
not fair to judge a beauty when you meet 



"MODERN ATHENS." 239 

her on a cold winter's day, wrapped in 
furs, with red and frost-bitten nose, mud- 
bespattered dress, and hair dishevelled by 
the wind ; it is better to wait till you can see 
her in becoming summer garb, with sunny 




smiles and graces : neither is it right to criti- 
cise a town in weather that is wet and misty, 
so I shall certainly revisit this charming city 
under more genial atmospheric conditions, 
when the valley is fresh and verdant, when the 
trees are clothed in their summer foliage, and 
the sun shines upon " Modern Athens." 




Glasgow, 



My dear J/., 

When I arrived in this city 1 went up to 
the bookstall at the railway station to buy a copy of 
the "Bailie" and the "Evening News" when a Glas- 
gow friend, zvhom I had previously met in London, 
rushed up to me frantically, and cried : " Take mine I 
take urine ! " giving me his newspapers ; " but don't 
buy at that stall; the proprietor of it is the Mac- 
dougall of Glasgow, and we buy our papers outside 
now" And then he went on to tell me of the partial 
boycotting of this newsvendor for trying to introduce 
some absurd new (and original) Police Act, in which 
some of the clauses were simply ridiculous. If you 
happen to meet your aunt from the country and shake 
hands with her in a public thoroughfare, the police 
have a right to arrest you, and you are liable to nine 



FLYING VISITS. 



241 



months' imprisonment with hard labor. If you ac- 
cidentally wink at a policeman, he can k?iock you 
down, and displace not less than five of your front 
teeth with his foot or his truncheon. Should you curl 
your moustache while walking in the public streets, 
the police are at perfect liberty to arrest you, drag you 
off to the nearest 
barber's and 
have your head 
and your hirsute 
ado r 11 m cuts 
shaved at your 
own expense. If 
you happen to 
merely look at a 
public - J lous e or 
restaurant, you 
are to be thrown into the first mud-cart that comes 
along, and with its contents to be flung into oblivion 
forever. I make a mental resolution to disguise my- 
self, to only slink about in back streets, and not to at- 
tempt to make a single sketch here. 

It is rather curious that one is let down into Glas- 
gow as into the shaft of a pit, by a chain which is at- 
tached to the front of your train, and which chants 
sweet monotonous melody to you as you descend the in* 




242 FLYING VISITS. 

dine, giving you a sample of the noise which never 
leaves yon as long as you remain in the busy city of 
the North. 

What's in a name ? Everything, if it happens to 
be the name of a hotel. You know, it is my custom 
always to walk to the hotel we are going to stay at, 
leaving Mac to folloiv on in a cab with the luggage. 
The hotel we zvere booked to stay at was certainly one 
of the best knozvn in Glasgow, and ivas situated in a 
most prominent position. I had the name of it care- 
fully written down on a piece of paper, so that there 
should be no mistake : but after asking half-a-dozen 
policemen, a dozen shopkeepers, and a score of the 
most intelligent-looking of the passers-by, and finding 
they all shook their heads, I began to fear that I 
should never find either Mac or my rooms ; so I hailed 
a cab and told the driver to go to the Windmill Hotel, 
where I had engaged rooms. " Aa dinna ke7i nae 
hoose edd the Windmill at a '," was all lie said. I 
was almost giving up my search in despair when to 
my delight I saw a cab dash round a corner in front 
of me, bearing a pile of luggage which I recognized 
as my own, with Mac on the box-seat. Now I'm all 
right, I thought, but the cab was too far away to hail, 
so I had to chase it ; but a stem chase, as everybody 
knows y is a long one, so I had to travel a considerable 



FLYING VISITS. 243 

distance at a most unwonted rate of speed before ar- 
riving at the hotel in a most exhausted condition; 
when I found the establisJiment was not widely known 
as " The Windmill" which name was comparatively 
new, but as " Macduff's Hotel" hence my difficulty in 
finding it. . . . 

Here in Glasgow I am reminded of Sheffield, the 
gloom of the place contrasting witli the brightness 
of the people, judging at least from those of the pop- 
ulace who come to the Queen's Rooms to hear me at 
night. . . . 

• • • / am afraid we shall lose the Professor be- 
fore we leave here, as the courtly, or as he might be 
called, the EarVs-Courtly, Buffalo Bill is Jiere with 
Ids famous Wild West Show, and the Professor spends 
all his spare time in the camp, revelling in gruesome 
tales of Indian warfare, night -at tacks, blood-tJiirsty 
massacres, etc., and I am dreading that he will turn 
up to manipulate the lantern some evening attired in 
the garb of a brave on the warpath. I hardly think 
it would tend to increase my audiences ! 

Yours, etc., 




THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Three to One — Burns Mania — Window-pane Verses — Burns 
Going to the Dogs— The Two Markets — A Scotch Rus- 
sian — An Ex-M.P. — Only a Face at the Window- -Old 
Mortality and His Pony — The Observatory Garden. 

THE stranger entering Dumfries from the 
railway station, seeing its narrow and poorly- 
paved streets, not very enticing-looking shops, 
and less-enticing hotels, would consider the 

above heading an 
utter misnomer, 
and if first im- 
pressions are 
everything, then 
one has nothing 
to say in justifi- 
cation of this 
regal title ; never- 
theless this is 
what the ancient 
burgh is popularly 
termed. Queens 
of the South 
might be better 
understood ; for I am informed that in Dumfries 




THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 245 

there are three women to every man, and fine 
strapping specimens of the Scotch lassie they 
are too. 

Passing up toward the Observatory, it is 
made evident to you that Dumfries has a 
distinct artistic character of its own ; and 
when you reach the summit of the town, 
which is revered as the burial-place of Robert 
Burns, you can but acknowledge that it is 
well worthy of its poetic name, and a fitting 
place to contain the shrine of Scotland's 
greatest poet. Stratford-on-Avon is not more 
sacred to the memory of the immortal 
Shakespeare than is Dumfries to the memory 
of Burns. You find his portraits in every 
room, little busts on every mantelpiece, and 
relics and memorials of him at every turn. 
Burns, it would seem, had a special penchant 
for writing upon window-panes, and, perhaps, 
if he had lived in more recent years, some of 
his sparks of genius would have been scratched 
on the railway carriage windows, and hero 
worshippers would have had the extra satis- 
faction of going and coming to and from 
Dumfries in a "Burns saloon carriage." In 
the ante-railway period, when coaching estab- 
lishments were the temporary home of the 



246 FLYING VISITS. 

traveller, he inscribed the following verse, 
which is still shown, upon one of the windows 
of the Kind's Arms Hotel in Dumfries : 

" Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 
'Gainst poor excisemen ? Give the cause a hearing. 
What are your landlord's rent-rolls ? Taxing ledgers. 
What premiers, what even monarch's mighty gangers ? 
Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men? 
What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen ?" 

He also ornamented two panes in another 
hostelry with these two effusions : 

" O, lovely Polly Stewart, 
O, charming Polly Stewart, 
There's not a flower that blooms in May 
That's half as fair as thou art." 

And an altered rendering of a well-known song: 

" Gin a body meet a body, 
Coming through the grain ; 
Gin a body kiss a body, 
The thing's a body's ain." 

Again I must perforce fall foul of the 
artistic monstrosities that are erected to great 
men. Here in the centre of the town of 
Dumfries the people have erected a statue, 
which my sketch is sufficient to show is rather 



THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 



247 



15 L 



ridiculous. Even if there is any truth in the 

saying that the great bard of Scotland went 

to the dogs, it wasn't at all nice of the sculptor 

to make this fact so plain to the inhabitants of 

the town where his 

memory is so revered, 

as to depict his right 

foot as being the first 

part of him to go. 

The statue 

fashioned out of the 

hardest of Carrara 

marble; and I am 

inclined to say of it 

what a critic said 

of an artist's work 

before which he was 

shuddering: " The | 

worst of it is," he^^ 

said, <* that it is 

painted in permanent 

colors ! " 

At the time I visited Dumfries there were 
two markets being held — one for cattle and 
the other for human beings. This latter was 
a peculiar assemblage of curious-looking 
rustics, both male and female, who were 




248 



FLYING VISITS. 



being interrogated and bargained for by their 
prospective employers ; and the farmer who 
had disposed of his cow in one market, only 
had to proceed to the other to engage his 
laborers. On the fringe of the crowd I 
noticed a smart-looking cavalry man. who 
was evidently doing 
his utmost to induce 
some of these toilers 
of the field to lay 
down the shovel and 
take up the sword. 
Some of the types 
were as extravagant 
as any you would 
find in the West of 
Ireland. The market 
is attended by huck- 
ster s, cheap delf 
merchants, broom- 
sellers, and fish sales- 
men ; and one of 
these gentlemen, 
who was crowned with an enormous fur cap, 
seemed to me to resemble a Russian peasant 
a great deal more than a canny Scot. Then 
a woman passed me with a wretched baby 




/ 






;!l 



§8& 



*\ 



: %' OKSg-Z~ 






/5 '- fK yRJ '(SSI V I L "*»,' 








250 



FLYING VISITS. 



in her arms, and holding her hand and 

toddling along by her side was a diminutive 

and ludicrous- 
looking boy, 
who, with a hat 
the size of a 
tea-tray, resem- 
bled nothing 
\ more than a 

j large mushroom. 
I stepped into 
a stationer's 
shop close by to 
make a small 
purchase, when 
a fine old man, 
aged, hearty, 

and genteel, came in. " Bless me ! " he said ; 

" bless me ! It makes 

me ill to see all this 

rubbish about. 

Rubbish, I call it ; 

rubbish ! Ah, when 

I was a boy they had 

none of this non- 

sense ! 

I turned round to 





THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 2$l 

see what was the cause of this ebullition, 
which turned out to be a counter thickly 
littered with Christmas cards. The old gen- 
tleman caught my eye, and said : 

"Ah ! that gentleman is laughing at me; 
but I am old-fashioned, and can't stand these 
new-fangled ideas." 

He was an ex-Member of Parliament, and 
would have made a fine subject for me ; so I 
was furtively feeling for my pencil, when some- 
one told him who I was, so he quickly de- 
parted ; but I managed to make a hurried 
sketch of him as he left the shop. 

While perambulating the streets of Dum- 
fries, I narrowly eyed each member of the 
predominating sex to see if they bore any 
outward and visible 
reason for their numeri- 
cal advantage, but I 
failed to notice any- 
thing to account for it 
until I saw the face I 
show in my sketch, 
which luckily was on 
the inner side of a 
window pane, and which, I think, must have 
accounted for the disappearance of a large 




252 



FLYING VISITS. 



proportion of the male population of Dum- 
fries. 

My time of departure had nearly arrived 
when I suddenly discovered that I was about 
to leave Dumfries without having' seen the 
famous representation of Old Mortality and 
his pony ; so, being a student of Art as well as 
of Nature, I hired a conveyance, rushed madly 
through the town, over the bridge, up to 
Observatory, when, jumping out, I darted up 
the garden and made the sketch which I show 




THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH 253 

here, the while my companion was hurriedly 
" takkin notes " of the curiosities around. 
Burns termed the miscellaneous collection 
inside the building a " fouth o' auld knick- 
knackets," but those outside are rather too 
cumbersome to be classed under this head, 
consisting mainly as they do of a pile in one 
corner of the garden of old stones of all 
shapes and sizes — round, oblong, semicircular, 
and triangular, some of them ornamented with 
primitive designs. These, with an old horse 
skull, a fountain, a flagstaff, and a cannon, 
comprise the entire ornamentation of the 
garden. 




Glasgow. 

My dear M., 

Since writing yon last we have been to 
Hazvick — old-fashioned hotel, old-fashioned hall, old- 
fashioned audience, and good old-fashioned Scotch 
weather. Even Booth seems to have a dijficidty in 
manning his citadel ; for between the parts of my en- 
tertainment we attended a Salvation Army meeting — 
if looking through- a side-door into an adjoining hall 
can be called attending a meeting — and we saw there 
half-a-dozen Scotch lasses, two men and a boy, not pro- 
vided, as might have been expected, with bagpipes, but 
with instruments of a more vulgar type in vogue in the 
A rmy. Profanity — and there is plenty of it at Salva- 
tion Army meetings — may shock one when spoken in 
English, but the Saxon cannot help letting his risibil- 
ity get the better of him when the said profanity is 
uttered in strong Gaelic accents. . . . 



FLYING VISITS. 



255 



. . . Dumfries, ivhere we next stopped, besides 
suffering from a cJironic complaint — I mean the Burns 
fever — is, like Dundee, victimized by the influenza 
fiend. This necessitated more snuff, which, by the 
way, is the worst thing for anyone who has to speak 
for any time to take, as it affects the throat ; but my 
moderate quantum snuff — I mean suff. — did not affect 
me to any great extent, beyond causing me to acquire 
a sort of incipient Scotch burr, which my audience 
took as a compliment to them. . . . 

. . . Our next move ivas Kilmarnock, and the hotel 
we stopped at 
tJiere was the 
best of the old- 
fashioned sort 
we had yet 
encountered in 
Scotland. I 
sent you some 
of the famous 
Kilmarnock 
whiskey from 
there. A better 

draught is not to be had anywhere, but a worse draught 
than I ivas in on the stage can hardly be conceived. 
It was a small cyclone. Fortunately at eitlier side of 




256 FLYING VISITS. 

the stage there was an alcove sheltered from the N.E. 
windy which came whistling dozen from the flies. I 
delivered a part of my entertainment from one alcove, 
and then turning up my coat collar I would scuttle 
across to the other and get through anotJicr instal- 
ment ; so that I must hare looked like one of these 
old-fashioned figures in the weather-tellers, which 
advance and retreat according to the changes in the 
weather. . . . 

. . . We have also been to Paisley and Greenock, 
winding up at the latter place on Saturday night. 
The Professor spent his day there at the Courts, and 
unburdened himself to us of a vivid description of the 
case of some unfortunate circus performer who had 
murdered his sweetheart. By the way, I discovered 
some MS. of the Professor s in cipher the other day. 
I was beginning to suspect him of being a contributor 
to the " Jail-bird Gazette," or else that he is going in 
for a competition in " Startling Bits." . . . 

Yours, &c, 




THE TOWN OF THE " TWA BRIGS.' 



More of the Burns Epidemic— Relics of Tarn O'Shanter and 
Souter Johnny— The Burns Country— " The Auld Brig o' 
Doon"— The Esplanade— An " Ayr-gun "—The Legend 
of the " Twa Brigs "—No Romance Nowadays. 




HE 

as 
describes it, 



old town of Ayr, or, 
Burns more familiarly 



" Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a 
town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonnie 
lasses," 

is associated with two 
things, sport and song. In 
the summer time, pilgrim 
worshippers of the immor- 
tal Burns overrun the 
historic place ; the lightly- 
clad Yankee tourist, that 
^ v most enthusiastic devotee 

of everything that is ancient in the mother 
country, the Southern cheap tripper, the 
Midland manufacturer, with an occasional 
rata avis from the Continent, wend their way, 



258 FLYING VISITS. 

open-pursed and open-mouthed, to visit the 
birthplace of Robert Burns, and those scenes 
the immortalization of which have given the 
poet such a prominent niche in Scotland's 
temple of fame. For twopence they can stand 
awe-stricken in " the cottage," the hallowed 
spot where Burns first saw the light, now the 
sanctum sanctorum of his spiritual existence. 
In this humble abode everything Burnsian is 
concentrated. You are surrounded by Burns 
portraits and manuscripts, and can feast your 
eyes with the identical, or supposed to be 
identical, chairs which supported in the Tarn 
o' Shanter Inn the historic forms of Souter 
Johnny and the redoubtable Tarn himself. 
The shade of this worthy also pervades 
Alloway Kirk, past which Tarn and his gray 
mare were wending their homeward way when 
the unwonted illumination drew him to become 
a witness of the witches' dance, that fearsome 
orgie which Burns has so powerfully described 
in verse. The Burns Monument, close to the 
Kirk, is open for your inspection on payment 
of the inevitable twopence. Here again there 
is another strong muster of Burns relics, and 
if you are smitten very badly with the Burns 
fever, you can, without any extra disbursement, 



THE TOWN OF THE " TWA BRIGS. 1 



259 



ascend the stairs and gaze enraptured at the 
surrounding scenery, popularly known, it is 
hardly necessary to say, as " the Burns 
country." The "Auld Brig o' Doon," and 
the stone presentments of Tarn o' Shanter and 
Souter Johnny still claim your attention before 
you return. to the town itself, when, if you are 
a well-regulated tourist, your antiquarian ap- 
petite ought to be thoroughly satiated. 




In winter " the horn of the hunter is heard 
on the hill," and over the " twa brigs o' Ayr" 
pass the huntsmen with their eager-mouthed 
pack, for Ayr is one of the centres of the 



260 FLYING VISITS. 

native sportsman, though I was informed that 
the seductions of the Leicestershire hunts were 
drawing a good many devotees of the sport 
away. Ayr is known as the Brighton of Scot- 
land, and I suppose that in the summer season 
the visitors throng the " twa brigs o' Ayr," and 
promenade up and down the Esplanade, but 
at this period of the year the Esplanade is 
anything but an enticing spot. Instead of 
having bright, handsome shops facing the sea, 
the buildings seemed to have turned their 
backs on the waters of the Firth of Clyde and 
long vistas of bare, uninteresting walls meet 
the view, in strong contrast to the watering- 
places on our South Coast. In the centre 
stands the prison, grim and forbidding of 
aspect, with its iron-barred windows, and en- 
circled by a high wall. On the other side of 
this is Wellington Square, in which stand the 
statues of two gentlemen of note, the late Earl 
of Eglinton and General Neil, who was killed 
at the relief of Lucknow. 

I made my visit during the recent storms, 
and with tightly buttoned ulster and hat firmly 
jammed down on my head, I braved the 
elements and took a walk along, or more 
correctly speaking, was blown along, the sea 



THE TOWN OF THE "TWA BRIGS: 



261 



front. Crack ! crack ! crack ! like a fusillade 
of toy- pistols, went the seaweed with which 
the parade was thickly strewn, under my feet. 
I thought at first that I was the only living 




being on the Esplanade on this inclement 
morning, but at last I met one native, a robust 
lady, taking her constitutional and battling 
with the wind ; a few dishevelled dogs were 
being blown off their legs ; and at the end 
toward the harbor were congregated a little 
knot of hardy-looking, weather-beaten fisher- 



262 



FLYING VISITS. 



men, discussing the thrilling accounts of the 
numerous recent shipwrecks. Here were two 



*~fei 







or three guns of an obsolete type, useless as 
weapons of offence or defence, and not exactly 
what might have been termed ornamental ; and 

I suppose that 
frequently 
during the 
season the 
Cockney tour- 
ist, if that 
ubiquitous 
being penetrates so far from his beloved 




264 FLYING VISITS. 

Metropolis, sees his opportunity for a little 
joke, and says to one of the sailors, " I sup- 
pose this is wot you call an Ayr-gun ? " 

In my sketch of Ayr I show the " twa 
brigs " previously referred to, the old and the 
modern. The old bridge is a picturesque and 
venerable pile, and there is a romance in every 
stone. The legend dates back over six hun- 
dred years, and the story is neatly told as 
follows by Mr. William Robertson : 

" On the right-hand side — the upper side 
of the bridge — is a date, 1252, and close by, 
all that remains of what were once two heads. 
The disintegrating influence of time and 
weather have almost obliterated these heads, 
and it requires a strong effort of the imagina- 
tion to picture them the presentment of the 
faces of two fair ladies, who are said to have 
erected the bridge at their own expense. These 
ladies were lovers who were not only faithful, 
but practical. They were betrothed to knights 
of the olden time. As knights in these days 
were in the habit of doing, they went forth 
somewhere to fight. Returning to keep tryst 
with their sweethearts, they came to the river. 
It was rolling in torrent — and the river Ayr 
can roll in torrent when the winter rains are 



THE TOWN OF THE "TWA BRIGS: 



265 



out — but the cavaliers pushed their horses 
into the flood, and disappeared. The ladies 
wept: but when they had dried their tears 
they built the bridge ; and it must have been 
satisfactory to them to feel that they had 
rendered the courtship of the period less 




dangerous in wet weather as a recreation than 
it had been previously. I am not quite sure 
about that date, 1252 ; but this much is cer- 
tain, that the Old Bridge was there when 
Columbus set out to look for America." 

I stood on the bridge at midday, and 
thought of these two fair ladies ; and I was 
picturing to myself the scene — which must 



266 FLYING VISITS. 

appeal to every artist (shall I say in water- 
colors ?) — of the poor maids weeping copiously 
and bitterly, and their two knights being 
swept away, horses and all, when at that 
moment two young beauties of Ayr, comfort- 
ably wrapped up in their ulsters, walked 
briskly over the bridge, laughing at a knight 
of the road on wheels who was feebly en- 
deavoring to struggle over the bridge against 
a tremendous head wind and rain coming 
down in torrents. This little incident sug- 
gested to me that there is very little romance 
in these present practical days, even in the 
charming, quaint, old-fashioned town of Ayr. 




Ayr. 
My dear M., 

Please send up a hamper — some portable 
soup, a lobster or two, 
and some tinned meat 
will do — for we are 
on the verge of starva- 
tion ; and you migJit 
also send up a waiter 
with them — not a 
dumb one, but one 
for active service. The genial old 
imbecile who does duty for the lat- 
ter here may have been a useful 
veteran in the days of Konig Wil- 
heltn II., in the commissariat, but 
he is not much use in Jus present ca- 
pacity on the first floor of this hotel. 
I suppose he was placed here on ac- 
count of the duties being so light. 




268 FLYING VISITS. 

I have heard of people living on air, but I never ex- 
pected that I should have to do so in Ayr, Queer 
coincidence. It was very lucky the advance booking 
was large, for tJiere has been a regular storm all the 
time we have been Jiere. It has nearly blown us out 
of our room in the hotel ; in fact, Mac had to put 
weights on me when I turned into bed, in case a cyclone 
took me up the chimney. The same storm must have 
blozvn everything out of the larder, for we have ex- 
perienced the greatest difficulty in getting the where- 
withal to satisfy our appetites. Our principal article of 
diet was a statue of Burns — another one ! — on which 
we feasted our eyes from the hotel window. 

After my show zve rushed in as hungry as Jiunters ; 
but a great deal of bell-ringing was only productive 
of an attenuated and diminutive bird, which we put 
down to be a sparrow, but the superannuated individ- 
ual before mentioned gravely assured us it zuas a fowl. 
He seemed quite surprised when, after disposing of 
this miserable biped in two mouthfuls, zve told him 
that we were still ravenous and wanted sometliing to 
eat ; hozvever, he brought us tzvo poached eggs on toast, 
from the size of zvJiicJi we firmly believed they must 
have been laid by the sparrozv we had just demolished. 
They didn't go very far, but all our entreaties and 
supplications were only rewarded by two more eggs 
like the previous ones. That sparrow can't have been 
a very prolific bird ! 



FLYING VISITS. 



269 



The hurricane that had been raging outside was 
nothing to that which prevailed in the hotel when I 
zvent down to pay my bill ; even the barometer on the 
stairs immediately pointed to " Very Stormy " when it 
saw me coming. 

The hotel was first rate as far as upholstery and 
^g^ fittings zvent, but you, can't 

™ /^""n live on a Turkey carpet 

and a hydraulic lift, . . . 
. . . I had 
been looking for- 
ward to having 
some golf on the 
famous Prestwich 
links near here, but 
the Clerk of the 
Weather was evi- 
dently not in favor 
of the arrange- 
ment, and put his 
veto on it. I had 
a game a week or 
so ago on the links 
at Troon, which adjoin those of Prestzvich ; but on 
that occasion I travelled down from Glasgow. Even 
then there was a perfect hurricane of zvind, which 
blew the tee into the air before you could strike the 
ball off it, and frequently my hat had a race in mid- 




270 FLYING VISITS. 

air with my golf ball. I am anticipating with pleas- 
ure a return visit to this quaint old town, and I hope 
the elements will permit of my seeing more of it, as 
this time there is too much wind even for the aerial 
performance of paying a flying visit to Ayr, the coun- 
try of hunting and golf. . . . 

. . . On one of the tzva brigs we encoimtered the 
Professor, who, regardless of the inclement weather, 
had come to gloat over the scene of the legend of the 
tzvo knights and the two fair ladies. We said to 
him : " We suppose you are thinking that the rocks 
up against which the two knights were dashed by the 
stream were sharper in those days tlian they are 
noiv ? " He shook his head as he replied : " No, I 
don't think much of that legend ; those girls ought cer- 
tainly to have thrown themselves in after their lov- 
ers ! h and with a profound sigh at the incompleteness 
of the story, he bent his head to the gale and walked 
away. The howling wind and the blinding raiji com- 
bined to give the Professor an even more gruesome 
aspect than usual, eriveloped in an enormous mackin- 
tosh as he zvas — a mackintosh zvhich zvould, as he said 
himself, " make a splendid shroud for any average- 
sized man / " . . . 

Yours, etc., 




COTTONOPOLIS. 



Old Mancunium — Smoke and Shekels — Musical Manchester 
— Oh ! those Lorries ! — A Typical Picture of the City — 
More Statues — One that was left of them. 

Those artistically inclined, who visited the 
exhibition in Manchester five years ago, and 
strolled through the representation of Old 
Manchester, must have felt sorry indeed that 
a transformation had ever been effected in the 
appearance of the town, for the Manchester 
of to-day is hardly the most picturesque of 
cities. Of course, as in Old London, which 
was represented previously in the Exhibition 
at Kensington, all the tit-bits of the picturesque 
past were collected together, and formed into 
one charming street. In the old days one 
would have had to look through a great deal 
of crude ugliness to find the artistic, so to-day 
it may be possible to trudge through the wet, 
foggy, dull, uninteresting miles of Manchester 
and pick out a nook and corner here and there, 
which, blended together, would make an 
agreeable whole, but to complete the harmony 
we would want an agreeable atmosphere. 



272 FLYING VISITS. 

Whatever the Manchester of the bygone 
days may have been, it surely could be seen ; 
nowadays, even that is not always possible. 
During a stay in Manchester you have a much 
better opportunity of forming a close acquaint- 
ance with the interior of the Manchester four- 
wheeler, or the inside of your umbrella, than 
the exteriors of the public buildings. 

Although trees may not grow in Cottonopo- 
lis, fortunes do, and it is in the knowledge of this 
fact that its inhabitants live, move, and have 
their being. As for the proverbial wet weather, 
that is nobody's fault ; that the much-abused 
clerk of the weather is a Manchester man, or 
has any particular spite against the city, is a 
question which has not yet been decided. The 
smoke is the cause of the prevailing dulness, 
and as smoke is (or perhaps I should say, is 
at present) inseparably connected with trade, 
probably brighter weather, if it did by any 
chance arrive, might not be altogether accept- 
able to the Manchester man of commerce. 

In spite of this, Manchester prides itself 
on being artistic, musical, and theatrical. No 
doubt no finer collection of pictures has been 
got together than that in the exhibition a few 
years ago ; Halle's concerts are unsurpassed, 



274 



FLYING VISITS. 



and the Shakesperian revivals were the best 
produced plays of the day. My experience of 
Manchester has been rather too limited to 
judge of these things for myself, but I have 
heard it said that appreciation of the three 
arts is the work of three men ; that but for 
Mr. Agnew no art to speak of would have 
existed ; that Sir Charles Halle's personality 
has gained for the city its musical reputation, 
and that Mr. Charles Calvert supplied the 
theatrical culture single-handed. That is all 



r~ 







very well. The populace may be devoid of 
rare artistic feeling, but they have a commer- 
cial one which prompts them to spend their 
money, without which art could not flourish. 
Manchester, like London, may be paved with 



COTTONOPOLIS. 



275 



gold, but why have it paved at all ? Why not 
have gold replaced with smooth, noiseless wood 
and asphalt ? Then might the weary travel- 
lers rest in the 
arms of Mor- 
pheus undis- £££§\ 
turbed. Oh, 
those lorries 
a bed 
Cheapside 
would be 
Paradise to 
the h u r 1 y- 
burly of stone- 
pave d Man- 
chester. 

My sketch 
at the head of 
this article is 
typical of Manchester. The imposing exterior 
of the fine Town Hall can only be seen in 
silhouette, and the busy populace, on business 
bent, flit about like shadows in the mist ; but, 
after all, the noise and din of commerce is 
the sweetest of music to the mercantile ear, 
which hears the chink of gold through the rattle 
of heavily-laden wagons. In the foreground is 




276 



FLYING VISITS. 



the daughter of a wealthy merchant, interesting 
herself in the poor sister of the slums ; this 
makes a pretty little scene, and is true to 
Nature, for wealth and misery are ever side 
by side. 

In this square stands the statue of John 
Bright. The great orator of Parliament is 
turning his back upon the late 
Bishop, and I was singularly 
struck by the fact that the poor 

sculptor has 

great difficulties 

to contend with. 

The Bishop in 

his gaiters is all 

right, but just 

look at Mr. 

Bright's back, 

and you will fy 

find he looks /ft 

like a clumsy J| 

amateur con- 
jurer about to *• 

perform some w I 

trick with an 

egg and a handkerchief. It is 

a pity, for the face and front 





COTTONOPOLIS. 



277 



view of the statue are particularly good. 
Bright might have been shown in Quaker 
gaiters or ministerial garb. 




Not a hundred yards from the square, down 
a side street, I made a sketch of some girls 
waiting at a stage door to be engaged. What 
a change from the dull streets and workshops 
to the halls of dazzling delight ! 

To what base uses do we come ! Here in 



278 



FLYING VISITS. 



the centre of the town was a Crimean hero, 
standing dressed in the famed and revered 
uniform of the Light Brigade, offering his 
pictures and an account of his daring deeds. 
/"T\ An old washing-stand 

serves as a counter on 
which to place his 
photos, and I noticed 
that the poor fellow 
had, either by accident 
or design, selected a 
spot near the statue of 
the great Wellington 
on which to take his 
stand. 

As in all big cities, 
the streets of Cotton- 
opolis abound in side- 
lights and character, to 
describe one hundredth 
part of which, seen 
even by the casual visitor, would require a 
volume in itself; but at some other time I will 
give my impressions of Manchester more fully, 
and more worthy of the great city. 







Manchester. 



My dear M., 

A little novelty in hotels at last ! We were 
waited upon by neat-lianded Phyllises in our hotel at 
Preston ; and this fact, combined with the general ap- 
pearance of the establishment, suggests a convalescent 
home rather than a hotel, surroimded as it is by 
grounds, and the long covered passage, which leads 
right down from the hotel entrance down to the rail- 
way station, bears out this idea, particularly as the 
place was most scrupulously clean and well ordered. 
I had a packed atidience ; in fact, I couldn't have ex- 
pected to see the hall any better filled if my theme had 
been football in lieu of politics. Back to Cottonopolis 
next day, as in the evening I had to fulfil an engage- 
ment at Stretford. I seem to have taken a lease of 
the York Room in the Queen's Hotel here, so many 



280 FLYING VISITS. 

times during my tour have I put up in Manchester. 
The lift has just taken down the " Two Macs" Mac- 
lure and Maclean, and brought up my friend Agnew ; 
in fact, one friend after another invades me, all full 
of excitement over the Manchester School Board elec- 
tions and the symptoms of the approaching Parlia- 
mentary contest. It is a good thing there is no junc- 
tion in the lift; for party feeling is running high, 
and the different shades of political opinion might 
cause an amusing contretemps invaluable to the far- 
cical comedy now so much in vogue. . . . 

. . . But really I thought last night that some 
dreadful faction fight had occurred, for in the early 
hours of the morning I was awoke by what I thought 
zvas heavy cannonading, which continued with inde- 
scribable aggressiveness. Gat ling guns were going 
off, explosions were taking place every second. In my 
sleepy state of semi-consciousness, I put this down to 
either a fierce battle or an unusually protracted fire- 
work display ; but when it had continued for some 
time I got frantic and rang the bell violently, when 
in answer to my furious peals a sleepy domestic in- 
formed me that they were " only putting new boilers 
in the kitchen" Only, indeed ! I think they might 
have taken the votes of their patrons in the hotel as to 
whether they would rather have their nerves shat- 



FLYING VISITS. 28 1 

tered when they ought to be asleep, or take their meals 
outside the hotel on the following day. I know which 
way my vote would have gone. . . . 

. . . We are now off to Darwen—the last night 
of the tour, after sixteen weeks of u?tbroken engage- 
ments. Luckily, this last is an engagement, as the 
house is sure to be full of paper ; for my show comes 
among a series of entertainments given by Mr. Hunt- 
ington, the great papermaker, to his townspeople. I 
wonder if the first lecture given in this series ', con- 
sidering the name of this enterprising town, was on 
" The Origin of Species " ? The Professor thinks it 
was, and moreover assured us that " The Murder in 
tJie Rue Morgue " was first rehearsed at Darzven, and 
that Jekyll and Hyde came from these parts ; but, 
judging from the hearty, laughter-loving audience 
I had, I think this must be an invention on the Pro- 
fessor's part. . . . 

Yours, etc., 




TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 



A Stranger in a Strange Land — Over the Border — My First 
Glimpse of the "Land o' Cakes" — And my First of 
Switzerland — Draughty Carriages — Gretna Green — Elope- 
ments up to Date — "Caledonia, Stern and Wild" — 
Giants' Golf Links—" Caller Herrin' ! " 

I had never visited Scotland until I did so 
this winter. Year after year I have done the 
" Continong" more or less; I have explored 
England, Ireland, and Wales, but by some 
odd chance or other I found myself a stranger 
in a strange land when I crossed the border a 
short time ago. 

There is a curious fascination in visiting a 
new country for the first time ; the traveller 
always imagines for the time being that he is 
a Columbus on a voyage of discovery, and it 
is quite a disappointment to find nothing 
particularly worthy of notice in the hitherto 
unknown land. The moment you cross the 
border-line you peer out of the window — the 
grass is the same green, the trees bear the 
same foliage, and the telegraph poles are of 



TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 283 

the same pattern as those you have been 
passing for hours ; yet you imagine that some- 
how the grass grows more in patches, that the 
trees are all bent toward the north, and that 
the telegraph poles are shorter and placed 
nearer to each other. Are they ? I have more 
than once (to test this) " made believe" I have 
been travelling in a strange country, and have 
watched with interest everything I passed, 
everything I had been in the habit of seeing 
continually, with a fresh eye. It is really 
astonishing how many things you notice in 
this way that strike you as being unique and 
peculiar. It is very good fun playing a 
practical joke on yourself in this way, and it 
also brings home to you the fact that you 
often imagine you see things that are new 
which are really not so. Still I declare that 
as soon as I passed the border, and found 
myself for the first time in the " Land o' 
Cakes," my artistic eye was struck by the 
rich coloring of the landscapes, and I was 
forcibly reminded of the strong tones of the 
Scotch pictures I was familiar with. The red 
soil, the vivid green, and the rich purple back- 
ground of the mountain scenery was fresh and 
new to my eye, and there was no deceiving 



284 FLYING VISITS. 

my ear when at the stations the names were 
(unintelligible to me) called out as they were 
in a strong Scotch accent, but the picture as a 
whole is naturally enough not so strikingly 
different to the English eye as that presented 
by a country abroad. 

I recollect travelling right through the 
Continent by express without a change, and, 
awaking one morning in the train, I looked 
sleepily out of the window. There was a 
Swiss scene before me — the chalet covered 
with snow, the little village and the toy figures 
standing about, the mountains and the fir- 
trees. I thought for the moment my travelling 
companion had put a very indifferent oleo- 
graph on the window, and I stretched out my 
hand to take it down. I had had my first 
peep at Switzerland, but I doubt if the Swiss 
scenery can compare with that of Scotland. 
There is more of Nature and less of the made 
picture about the rugged Highlands, and it 
requires the pen of a Black and the brush of 
a MacWhirter to do justice to it. 

I must admit that, although I did not 
find the Scotch people cold (on the contrary, 
a warmer-hearted race it has never been my 
lot to meet), I found the travelling cold enough 



TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 



285 



in all conscience. Whether it is that the wind 
is more penetrating, or that the carriages are 
not so well built as ours, I cannot say, but I 




think the latter the more likely explanation. 
The compartments are leaky, the windows 
and doors being simply very open ventilating 
shafts. The result is better shown by a sketch, 



286 



FLYING VISITS. 



so here is my travelling companion literally- 
sketched in the train from life. 







Steaming away northward from Carlisle 
we pass a spot romantic in the extreme and 
dear to the heart of every daughter of the 
northern shires. It is Gretna Green. The 
country is pretty, and its charms are en- 
hanced by glimpses of the beautiful river in 
the distance. From the carriage window you 
can see a few houses and the blacksmith's 
shop, the most romantic spot in this romantic 
place ; perhaps also you may catch a glimpse 
of the little inn close by, where the marriages 



TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 



287 



took place, and where the unique register is 



still to be seen 
the picturesque 
scene, you can 
imagine to your- 
self the runaway 
couple flying 
along in a post- 
chais e, th e 
horses covered 
with foam and 



As your eye takes 



in 



wincing 




again 
and again under 
the whip which 
is being freely 
plied by the pos- 
tilion, eager to 
reach the goal 
and claim his promised reward ; perhaps 
also he enters into the spirit of the thing, 
and excitement is another stimulant. Behind 
follows the irate parent in hot pursuit. Now- 
adays, had not the marriage laws of Scot- 
land been altered, the tandem tricycle of these 
prosaic times would have taken the place of 
the post-chaise of the past, and the angry 
father or guardian would have given chase on 



288 FLYING VISITS. 

a racing safety ; or the fleeing couple would 
have travelled by the Scotch express, and the 
chaser have chartered a pilot engine on which 
to follow them. It is well the law was altered 
before the romance could be destroyed by any 
such inartistic surroundings. 

But the strong feature of Scotland is the 
wild beauty of its picturesque scenery, and 
when traversing the length and breadth of 
the country in the train one panorama after 
another of varied landscape pleases and 
gratifies the English eye. In many of the 
hilly parts the land is unsuited for any pur- 
pose but grazing, and it is while the eye is 
surveying these desolate tracts that the mind 
realizes the beautiful fitness of the line, " O 
Caledonia, stern and wild/' 

As an instance of this, you can travel for 
miles through the huge estate of the Duke of 
Buccleuch without seeing any life on the wild, 
undulating, heather-covered hills, except here 
and there a grouse or blackcock, which, with 
a few other birds dear to the heart of the 
sportsman, and a few scattered sheep, were, 
as far as I could see, the sole denizens of this 
vast expanse of hill and dale, though I believe 
there are a few scattered shepherds' huts con- 



TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 



289 



cealed somewhere among the hills. The sole 
specimen of the human race that I saw in this 
land of solitude was one of these tenders of 
sheep. He was seated by the side of a running 




brook, the charms of which he ignored as he 
consoled himself in his solitude by a " wee 
drap " from a black bottle, which must have 
been a welcome companion in these dreary 
wastes. 



290 



FLYING VISITS. 



The stranger is somewhat puzzled by the 
sight of little circular walled-in enclosures 
dotted every here and there, and it is said 
that a facetious native informed an inquisitive 
English tourist that these hills were the chief 
Scottish golf-links, and that the enclosures he 
saw were the " putting-holes." Whether the 
tourist believed this explanation tradition 
sayeth not. As a matter of fact, these myste- 
rious enclosures are "bughts," which, being 
translated, means sheep-pens. 

How often one hears the name of Scotland 
coupled with the word shooting ; and yet, 




TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 



291 



to say, during the month or more I 
did not hear the report 



strange 

spent in Scotland I 
of a gun until just 
before I crossed 
the border home- 
ward-bound, 
when, as the train 
was urging on its 
wild career 
through lovely 
Annandale, I 
caught sight of 
a shooting-party 
close by the rail- 
way line, of which 
I had just time to 
make a hurried 
sketch before the 
iron horse had 




also 



carried me out of eyesight. I add 
note of a buxom Scotch fishwife, ever 
welcome sight in the " Land o' Cakes." 




£ X7>> 



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j£ 



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THE END. 



H 46- 79 




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